Healthy Fish Tacos w/Corn-Avocado Salsa, Pickled Red Onion/Jalepeños and Chipotle Cream
Fish tacos haven’t quite hit the east coast yet as a summer time must-eat. I wish I could say that it was my days as an avid SoCal surfer that led me to love fish tacos…needing to eat them after riding some killer waves from dawn to dusk, but unfortunately, I’m not so cool.
I have gone surfing (albeit poorly), and I am from Southern California and I do love fish tacos, but that’s pretty much the only truth from that last statement. Sigh. I should really get out more. I digress…
Back to the fish and their tacos. Fish is typically not the first choice of protein when thinking about tacos but I hope if you should try this recipe, it’ll change your mind. I love my Mexican food but sometimes it can get a little heavy. I never feel gross after eating a fish taco. A lot of times, I tend to sway towards the beer battered kind when I’m back home, but when it’s grilled it’s equally delicious and makes me miss the Californina sunshine.
I don’t have a grill so I cooked this up in a pan. It has all of my favorite flavors and it’s only the space in my stomach that makes me stop eating. I found a bunch of recipes and compiled them together to make this one super recipe adding some of my own touches (probably more heat and more lime…belly says hot damn this is good!).
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Adapted from recipes from Bon Appètit and Ellie Kriegar
Serves 4-6
FISH
1 lb. white flaky fish fillet, like tilapia or halibut
3 Tbs olive oil
3 Tbs freshly squeezed lime juice
Zest of 1 lime
½ tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper
½ Onion, diced or sliced thinly
Cilantro, roughly chopped
TACOS
6-inch corn tortillas
1-2 cups shredded green cabbage or lettuce
Chopped fresh cilantro
Lime wedges
CORN-AVOCADO SALSA
1 Avocado
1 Sm. can corn niblets (or about 1C. frozen corn, thawed)
1 Sm. Tomato diced
Salt and Fresh ground pepper to taste
2 Tbs fresh lime juice (or as much as you want)
Cilantro, chopped, to taste
Pickled Red Onion and Jalapeños
1 red onion (about 12 ounces), halved lengthwise, cut thinly crosswise
5 whole small jalapeños - if you like spicy, slice thin. If not, just put the
whole jalapeño in the mixture without cutting…but to that I say, what’s
the point?!
2 cups seasoned rice vinegar
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
CHIPOTLE CREAM
½ Cup sour cream
2 Tbs mayonnaise
2 tsp chipotle chiles, in adobo sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Zest of 1 lime
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Low fat version CHIPOTLE CREAM
(from Ellie Krieger…I have not tried this)
½ cup plain nonfat yogurt
2 Tbs mayonnaise or sour cream
2 tsp chipotle chiles, in adobo sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Zest of 1 lime
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- Pickled onion and jalepeño: Place onion and jalapeños in heat proof medium
bowl. Mix vinegar, lime juice, and salt in small saucepan. Bring just to boil, stirring until salt dissolves. Pour over onion and jalapeños. Let stand at room temperature at least 1 hour and up to 8 hours. Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover and refrigerate. - Chipotle cream: Mix together sour cream, mayo, chopped up chipotle chiles, lime juice and zest. Cover and refrigerate. Can be made a few days in advance.
For the low fat version: Take yogurt and put in a cheese cloth. Let it sit in a strainer over a bowl (you can weigh it down with a can to speed up the process). In the fridge for at least an hour or two. This makes yogurt cheese. Then mix the remaining ingredients together. Cover and refrigerate. - Marinate fish: In a large zip lock bag add the oil, lime juice, zest, onion, cilantro, salt and pepper. Add fish fillets and let marinate for minimum 20 minutes.
- Corn-avocado salsa: Cut up avocado and tomato to a smallish dice. Put in a bowl. Add corn and lime juice. Add salt, pepper and cilantro to taste.
- Fixin’s: Shred cabbage. Slice up a few extra limes and cilantro.
- Extra credit: Cut up a bunch of the corn tortillas, arrange them on a sheet pan.
Drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil on top and add some salt. Put into a 450 oven for about 5-8 minutes then turn over for a few more minutes. Don’t let them get too brown. They don’t taste as good. Home made corn tortilla chips! - Cook fish: In a fry pan on medium heat, add contents of zip lock bag. I just dump
everything into the pan. Separate fish so they all cook evenly. Once fish starts to turn white on the sides, flip them over. The whole thing shouldn’t take much more than about 10-12 minutes. I like to break up the fish so that it’s easier to scoop into the tortillas. Make your little fish taco buffet and enjoy!
