Fried Gluten Free Fish Tacos with Cilantro Lime Crema Sauce
Golden brown pieces of white fish tucked into a corn tortilla, topped with your favorite toppings. And then put over the edge with the most amazing cilantro lime cream sauce!
Equipment
- 2 Mixing bowls or bread pans
- cutting board
- Deep cast iron skillet or cast iron dutch oven
- Metal tongs
- Slotted turner
- Cookie cooling rack optional
- Rimmed Sheet tray optional
- Food processor
Ingredients
Gluten-Free Fried Fish
- Avocado Oil for frying. Enough to coat the bottom of your pan at least an inch.
- 2 Pounds White fish, cut into 2 inch by 1 inch pieces Tilapia, cod, mahi mahi, or halibut are good options. Fresh or thawed if frozen
- 1 cup Gluten-free all-purpose flour blend King Arthur's "Measure for Measure"
- 1/4 cup milk or dairy free option
- 2 eggs if needing to omit eggs, please see post notes
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 1/2 tsp paprika
- 2 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp salt fine ground
Cilantro Lime Cream Sauce
- 1/2 cup mayo vegan mayo can also be substituted
- 1/2 cup sour cream plain greek yogurt can be substituted or a dairy free version.
- 1 lime juice of 1 lime, or 2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 bunch cilantro tops and 1/2 way down the stems
- 1/2 jalapeno deseeded, (Adjust to taste)
- 2/3 cup diced onion yellow, white, or red onion.
- 1 tbsp garlic
- 1 tsp cumin
- salt and pepper to taste
Taco Ingredients
- Gluten-free corn tortillas
- red or green cabbage (or bagged coleslaw mix) thinly slice the cabbage
- whatever other taco toppings you desire.
Instructions
Cilantro Lime Cream Sauce
- Add all sauce ingredients to a food processor
- Blend until smooth with minimal chunks.
- Pour into a jar or container with lid.
- Set in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. (Flavors come together better if even longer.)
Batter the Fish
- Make sure your pieces of fish are all uniform in size
- Mix milk and eggs together in one of the mixing bowls
- In the other mixing bowl, mix the gluten free flour blend and all the batter spices.
- Dip a piece of fish into the wet mixture, (milk and egg mixture,) fully coating it.
- Then move the dipped piece of fish into the dry GF flour/ spices mixture
- Roll to fully coat
- Repeat dipping in the wet and dry mixture if desired for extra crunchy coating
- Set coated fish on a tray/ plate in a single layer
- Repeat with all the pieces of fish to fully coat them, then place them the tray.
Frying the Gluten Free Fish
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
- Please proceed with much caution when frying foods in hot oil.
- Add avocado oil to your deep cast iron skillet or dutch oven to be at least 1 inch deep.
- Turn heat to medium-low to slowly get it hot.
- Each stove and amount of oil will vary with how long this will take. But a trick to see if your oil is hot enough is to dust some of the dry flour mixture to the surface of the oil. If it starts to fry, your oil is hot enough. If not, give it another minute or so and try again.
- When the oil is hot enough, use metal tongs to carefully place a few pieces of fish into the oil.
- Tongs are important so that you have control of the handling of the pieces of fish.
- Cook for 3 minutes without disturbing the pieces of fish much. This helps set the coating.
- Gently roll over the pieces of fish onto the other side
- Cook for another 2-3 minutes.
- (Keep in mind that if your pieces of fish are larger than the suggested size, they will take longer to cook.)
- Carefully remove the hot fish with a slotted turner.
- Place the fish on the wire rack over a sheet pan. (See photo instructions if needed.)
- Fish should be cooked to an internal temperature of 145 degrees F, where it flakes easily but isn't dry.
- Continue following the previous steps to cook all the pieces of fish.
- Once all the fish is cooked and placed on the cookie drying rack/ sheet tray, place the tray with the fish on it into the warm oven.
- Turn off the oven but continue to keep the fish warm in it while you prep the rest of the toppings. Or if your toppings are ready, you can skip placing the fish into the oven, and serve it up.
Assemble your tacos
- Make your tacos by placing 2 stripes of fried fish into each shell.
- Add some sliced cabbage (or coleslaw mix)
- Top with the Cilantro Lime Cream Sauce
- Enjoy!
Notes
Make sure to not overcrowd the pan as it will drop the temperature of the oil quickly. Also, if the pieces of fish are hitting each other, they will stick and remove the breading from one another.
You don't want to use the slotted turner when placing the uncooked fish into the oil. They tend to fall into the oil unless you are very careful with laying them into the oil. The slotted turner is needed to pick up the pieces of fish as once they are cooked, they are tender and break easily.