Make food truck-style fish tacos at home using fresh tilapia, avocado, cilantro and corn tortillas, and top with a creamy onion-jalapeno mixture for amazing flavor.

Blackened Tilapia Baja Tacos

sour cream

cilantro

lime juice

jalapeño pepper, seeded and chopped

white onion

paprika

brown sugar

oregano

garlic powder

salt

cumin

red pepper

(6-ounce) tilapia fillets

canola oil

(6-inch) corn tortillas

½ ripe peeled avocado, thinly sliced

lime wedges

Combine first 4 ingredients in a food processor; process until smooth. Combine jalape&ntilde;o sauce and onion in a small bowl.


Combine paprika and next 6 ingredients (through ground red pepper); sprinkle evenly over fish. Heat oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add fish to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness.


Warm tortillas according to package directions. Divide fish, onion mixture, and avocado evenly among tortillas. Serve with lime wedges.


I cooked these for my boyfriend last night after he told me he has never been particularly impressed by fish tacos - that they always look so good plated but the actual taste is reliably disappointing. Well he literally was raving about them hours after dinner as we were getting ready for bed. My only changes were adding a touch less brown sugar to the tilapia seasoning...otherwise the fish actually takes on a sweet flavor which is nice at first but doesn't quite match with the rest of the flavors. I also didn't bother food processing the ingredients for the sour cream sauce - just minced everything very finely and stirred it all together with very tasty results. I was also way more generous with the amount of sour cream and lime juice. Regardless of how you fine tune this recipe, I think overall you can't go wrong. I'll definitely be making these again. They are delicious. 

The only real change I made was to grill the tilapia.  Good heat that lingered even after we finished the meal.  Hubby usually complains when we have fish for dinner.  Tonight he did not.  Will make again.  I might sub out the onion and use some angel hair cabbage instead.

We absolutely love these fish tacos, but there is a lot of prep. I make a large batch of the seasoning for the fish so I don't have to measure that out every time and I'll also prep the jalapeno/sour cream mixture a couple days ahead of time. When you do that this dinner comes together in a jiff! And it's SO GOOD. We've also just used the seasoning for tilapia and served over a bed of rice with black beans or a black bean salad as a side. One of my favorite CL recipes!

Great recipe!  Nice selection of herbs and spices to pack a lot of flavor in there. Substituted greek yogurt (and a little water) for sour cream, regular onion for white, chopped garlic for the powder. Will probably use more jalapeno because I like heat. A lot of measuring but the results were top notch!

This recipe was simply amazing! I didn't have any fish, so I grabbed some ground beef from the fridge instead. The seasoning still worked pretty well, although I substituted the red pepper with a taco seasoning packet. I was fresh out of tortillas but found some hot dog buns in my cupboard. Once I scraped off the moldy bits it threw them in the oven to crisp up.  I didn't have any of the ingredients for the avocado sauce, but managed to find a can of Hormel chili (no beans of course) to top these bad boys off! Will definitely be making this again. Thanks for sharing!!

I didn't have jalapeños or cilantro, so I just mixed in a refrigerated store-bought salsa that had these ingredients with the sour cream. I used the spices exactly as written (except chipotle pepper instead of red pepper), but used cod instead of tilapia. I cooked the onions in a slight bit of olive oil before putting them on the tortillas. Served with some refried beans. Very good! Will make again and follow the whole recipe next time!

I like it, tasty and nutritional. We did not use Tilapia.

Made as written except I added red pepper to the onions since we love them so much. Delicious!

We made these per the recipe, and didn't find them wow-worthy.  They were just okay.  We were wanting more out of them.  The blackening was mild and the avocado didn't add much since that is also mild.  We felt the onions took center stage, and that shouldn't be.  We felt they needed something more.

My husband and Love this recipe!  It's quick, delicious and healthy.  I use imitation sour cream because I'm lactose intolerant and cod because my husband doesn't like tilapia.  Adding shredded cabbage gives it a little more crunch and vegetable.  Excellent flavors!

ok I have to ask.. what recipe site is CL? I'm not familiar with it and I've seen it mentioned several times in these reviews.

I LOVED these! Even though I am not a fan of tilapia, I think it was a light enough fish to just have the texture needed and the spices were fantastic on it. My fish did not fall apart like some of the reviewers said. The sauce was delicious, though I think next time I will add a little more jalapeno, I made it with red onions because I like them better and we also used flour tortillas.

Here in the Schmeegal household, onions are a main staple. We eat them at every meal and even use them in our aromatherapy session (to combat the awful Missouri allergy season(S!) ;) We just toe, toe, totallay love this recipe...not just because of the onion, either!!! All of the flavors are amazing...of course we add extra onion, and we use a carved out, grilled onion instead of corn tortilla (delish!) but other than that, we follow the recipe to a T. :)

I make these (or some variation of them) all the time. I love the tip from a couple other reviewers about soaking the onions. Sometimes I do it with green cabbage instead of onions, sometimes I do a mix of both. I always add a touch of salt in the food processor to the sour cream mix, it really brings out the flavor.
Sometimes I use two jalepenos, sometimes I use greek yogurt, sometimes I don't have a lime… It's always delicious.
We have topped with pico, or grilled zucchini/squash. We've also topped with red cabbage (if i'm not doing my slaw mix with cabbage already). It all depends on what we have in the refrigerator.
The fish seasoning is perfection.

I made this for the most part using the directions but I took out the avocado and used fresh mixed green salad instead. It is really delicious. My entire family loves it. My husband has been begging me all week to make it again. This will be dinner tonight!

One of the best fish tacos we've had! I've made it two weeks in a row and seconds was requested! :) success! I didn't change anything but will def make the sauce with 2 jalapeños so I can taste a little kick to it. 
Keeping this recipe!

Wasn't expecting the amazing flavor on this given the simple recipe. The spices were great on the fish and could easily be delicious on other meats or fish. It's the jalapeno/cilantro sauce that really puts this dish on top. I added a little greek yogurt to the jalapeno sauce and onion to thicken it. I'm a huge avocado fan, but as none of the avocados we got from the store turned out to be edible, I left them out and it was still a great meal.

This was the first fish taco recipe I've attempting making, and we really liked them! I added some pre-chopped coleslaw with the onions and jalapeño sauce for extra veggies/crunch!

Super easy to make and full of flavor. The entire family loved it!

These were a big hit in our family. Not too spicy (I like flavor, not heat) for me but a little kick for my husband.  Great blackened seasoning too - I'll be making that again for others things as well.

We have made this several times and everyone loves it. Not too spicy but great flavor..we normally add a little bit of Monteray Jack cheese with it and always use fresh tortillas.

I made this with one pound of fresh halibut instead of tilapia.   The halibut was a bit expensive at $25/lb at whole foods, but it just came into season and it was fresh wild caught halibut and it was really good.   I also used only half of a jalapeno instead of a whole one in the jalapeno sauce.    The sauce could have been spicier, so I will probably use a whole or 3/4 of the jalapeno next time I make this.   I don't use white onion much and it seemed very mild.  I don't normally like to eat uncooked onion, but this was great.   Overall, I loved the combination of flavors and the spice rub on the fish.   I would definitely make this again in the future.

This got high marks from my family.  I let the onion sit in the sour cream mixture to mellow them out.  The rub was delicious.  I cooked the fish in a cast iron pan, I think I would half the oil next time as the pan is non-stick.  It was delicious!  Note; this is a great make ahead dish.  You can prepare the seasonings and make the onion mixture the night before for a super quick dinner.

I love these!  So easy and delicious.  One of the first things I have ever been confident enough to cook for someone besides myself.

I made them even better the second time by turning the corn tortillas into "crispy" taco shells in the oven.  So good.

I also made the sauce with fat free greek yogurt instead of sour cream and it tasted great.

just finished eating this dish. the family loved it. I have to say that the lime wedges inhanced the flavor of the meal. Very healthy and perfect for dieters when using multi grain soft taco shells.

I baked my tilapia at 400F for 15 minutes after brushing it with olive oil and sprinkling the spices over it. I made the sauce without any jalapeno because I just can't do spicy. It was still PHENOMENAL! I'm so glad I found this recipe because it made me enjoy tilapia again! LOL

This was very good and reallly tasty. I even added shrimp to the fish.

These were fabulous!  We didn't have any leftovers.  Made the recipe exactly and added salt to taste at the end.  So delicious and easy.

My fianancee made these for a weeknight dinner, and they were fantastic! I was afriad becuase I made a really bad fish taco recipe in the past, but this one was easy and very tasty. The seasonings and sauce make it great! Will make again for sure.

Outstanding Pyle! I made this for dinner tonight and my neighbor and myself devoured (I had 3 tacos) these. The sauce and rub were a perfect compliment to each other. This is a perfect meal for a warm summer's night. I served this with Trader Joe's Cuban style Black Beans, Tortilla chips and red grapes for dessert. The only thing missing was an Ice cold beer. I will be DEFINITELY adding this to my rotation along with the beer.

These are fantastic.  My husband and I made these last week and absolutely loved them.  Relatively easy to make and amazing flavors.  We will definitely be making these again.

Excellent!!  The rub was excellent...will make extra next time. My tilapia did not fall apart at all. I did use less red pepper so children would eat it. All six children LOVED it, including my 2 yr. old. I did use  flour tortillas instead of corn. I thought the jalapeño sauce would be hot, but it wasn't at all. Loved the raw onions &amp; avocado on top of the fish.  Will definitely add this to our regular rotation!

I made these for dinner with some frozen tilapia that had been given to me by moving neighbors-wonderful!  I pan seared the fish in my cast iron wok and replaced the sour cream with plain non fat yogurt, even my finicky husband liked them.  The avocado slices make these umami!  I will definitely make this recipe again.

I made this last night for dinner and it was dee-licious!!  Loved it,  I will definitely be making this again!  
The rub was great, if you want to use this alone, but I'm thinking why not make the taco's!  It was great, you really need try this dish!!

I prepared this for friends and everyone loved it!  No leftovers.  Definitely going to make it again...it's so easy and so good.

Absolutely delicious! The rub on the filet was yummy and they were so quick and easy. I think these will become part of the regular dinner line up!

Delicious.  The 6 oz fillets provide a very generous serving of fish.  I cut my fillet lengthwise, putting one half in each tortilla and added the avocado slices and onion sauce and a squeeze of  lime juice, just like the recipe suggests.   Yummy but quite messy!

Really enjoyed this simple recipe. Husband asked for it again and again. Great way to get more fish in the diet.

Easy and quick!  I added Adobo seasoning to blacken mix.

I even forgot to avocado on my tace and I loved them. Great recipe!

The first time I made these I thought they were wonderful.  The next couple of times the onion was strong and overpowering.  Next time NO ONION mixture; I will only use the fish seasoning, it was delicious and use a cole slaw in place of onion mixture.

We loved this recipe.  Pretty easy and really tasty!  I couldn't find tilapia so I used salmon instead.  One half an avocado may have made it healthier but we used  more than that! I don't think it is necessary to soak the onions.  After being in the sour cream sauce they lost a lot of their strong onion flavor. Yummy

Superfast and very easy.  Made to recipe except held the sliced onion in some cold water while prepping the rest of the meal, then drained before mixing with jalapeno sauce.  Nice spice rub for fish and good combo of flavors &amp; textures in the taco.  Served with some red refried beans &amp; chiles and a bit more sliced jalapeno and scallion to taste.  Very good.

I made this last night for dinner and we loved it. I like the seasoning blend for the fish very tasty. I did not have fresh cilantro so I didn't make the sauce just used the sour cream. I loved the avocado but the hubby did not. I will make this one again.

This is a great recipe that is quick to pull together and serve in larger quantities.  I served w/ spanish rice and a green salad.

This recipe is fantastic.  I didn't change anything and have made this twice.  The last time for a dinner party of 8 where I set up a Mexican Food Bar and our guests made their own Baja Tacos.  I might add, our guests were die-hard Texans with picky palettes for Tex-Mex dishes. Everyone loved this dish and the cilantro rice I served on the side.

Sauce is excellent, but recipe overall is lacking. Disappointing after all the rave reviews.

We LOVE these fish tacos and have made them several times.  I usually sub in chipotle pepper powder for the cayenne to add a bit of smokiness without losing the "kick" in the spice mixture.  I forgot to add cumin last night when I made them and didn't miss it a bit.  We don't care for raw onions so I shredded some cabbage, carrot, and used some left over spaghetti squash to make the jalapeno sauce mixture and it was delicious with the tacos.

Some of the best fish tacos around. The tilapia was sooo moist and the spice combo delicious. The brown sugar gave it an unusually pleasant kick. I used plain lowfat yoghurt instead of sour cream, works just as well and cools it nicely, and healthier. I substituted mint for cilantro just because I hate cilantro and the mint worked great. I would add more veggies to the mix, maybe simply some torn lettuce. I used blue corn tortillas. Easy and yummy.

These are delish! Made it exactly!! Yummo!!

These were phenomenal! They were quick, inexpensive and packed with flavor!! The only thing I would do differently next time is add some chipotle chile pepper and less brown sugar... needs a little more spiciness and less sweetness. The onion cream was spot on. This has been added to the rotation!

This was good.  We followed the recipe exactly &amp; didn't have any problems.  Maybe not the best fish tacos I've ever had, but good.  We're getting spoiled, as we've made some CL recipes that were phenomenal.  This isn't in that category, but I really can't think of any complaints with the recipe &amp; we'll make it again.

My husband and I LOVED this.  We did substitute mahi mahi for tilapia and it turned out great.  The only thing I would've added more of was salt, but I will admit that I'm a salt lover.  LOVE the amount of protein in this recipe!  We also made a side salad with avocado, black beans, corn and iceburg.  YUM.

The hubby said he thinks this is the best fish taco he's ever had and gave this recipe a five stars.  He only asked that I double the onion sauce and have extra avocado on hand next time.  Easy to make and I made no substitutions.

Made exactly as directed and they are fantastic!  And still great as leftovers!  Next time I plan on searing the fish over high heat on our Big Green Egg with some wood chips thrown in for added flavor.

Awesome.  This made it into our regular meal rotation.  Love the use of the sauce and onions rather than the traditional cabbage / slaw you get on baja fish tacos.  Fresh lime at the end is a must.  Also, we slice the fish into strips, double the recipe for the seasoning, and get a fair amount of it on each of the strips.  It really helps blacken the tilapia.

These were the BEST fish tacos I've ever had!! The spices on the fish would go well with shrimp, too. All the flavors went so well together. I used ground coriander instead of fresh cilantro and LaTortilla Factory Smart &amp; Delicious tortillas instead of corn tortillas. Can't WAIT for leftovers tonight! For WW members, only 9 pts for everything!

The spice rub for the tilapia adds great flavor. We like to add a little slaw topping too! This will be a go-to summer recipe - we've made it 3 times already!

These were amazing the best fish tacos I have made by far. I used mahi mahi instead of tilipia. I highly recommend these

Excellent, simple, and quick way to prepare Tilapia.

I love the marinated spicy onions!  I too had problems blackening the fish but I didn't care in the end because it's delicious.  Have made this twice, the only thing I change is I like basil on the onions better than cilantro.

This is the Goldilocks of spice rubs. It's *just right*. Perfect blend of flavor and heat. I substituted thawed frozen wild cod for the tilapia for a healthier fish option. And I made the cream mixture using plain yogurt &amp; a chipotle with a little adobo instead of sour cream &amp; jalapeÃ±o (that happened to be what I had in the house but I'll use it next time too, the chipotle lent a nice smoky/spicy touch). I mixed the sliced onion with a little lime juice and kept them separate from the yogurt/chipotle sauce. I used my cast iron skillet, which is naturally nonstick, so no oil was necessary. This one is going into the regular rotation.

This was so tasty.  All the flavors worked wonderfully.  I blackened haddock instead of tilapia, fried in butter and I also just sprinkled the onions on instead of mixing them with the sour cream.  This is a keeper in our house and we'll be making it again.  The prep time was quick and easy. Yum.

I sometimes have difficulty cooking fish...and getting my husband to eat it!  This turned out beautifully!  I did soak the onions in some cold water for about 30 minutes before adding them to the sauce to tone them down a bit.  Besides that, I follwed the recipe exactly.  I served them with a side of black beans, which I added to the two tacos I reheated for lunch the next day.  The beans made them even better!

Wow- great, easy recipe. The fish was delicate, flavorful and pretty. The onion jalapeno sauce was delicious. To shave calories, we ate the leftovers on top of a salad, added tomatoes, and omitted the avocado and tortilla. Served with spanish rice and green beans.

This was so good! Followed the recipe as written, however, I would add more jalapeno to give it a greater kick. I also would recommend more avocado and cilantro to place inside the taco.  I served with black beans and rice.  Can't wait to make again! Delicious!

I made this for lunch and my mother devoured it.  I thought it needed more salt.  After tasting the cilantro sauce I added more cilantro and thought it was a bit bland but in the end, adding salt to everything heightened the flavors.  The spice rub is excellent.  Will make again!

these were so good!  i don't like cilantro generally, but i just added a bit more sour cream to the mixture to mute it.

as a side, i threw all of this into a pot: 1 can black beans, 1/2 jar salsa, chopped onion, and some frozen corn (season as you want).  perfect!

My husband and I loved this! Very easy to make (I did the onion mixture hours ahead of time). YUM.

The sauce really MUST be prepared in a mini-food processor.  The portion was too small to touch the blades in my standard size processor and I had to borrow a friend's mini.  After processing it was a little runny, but very tasty.  I don't like raw onions so I left those out.  The rub was tasty - not very spicy or overwhelming.  I didn't have corn tortillas and subbed flour.  It was a nice change for dinner but likely not a repeater.

This recipe just isn't that good, though it's got some potential.  First off, there's not enough rub: maker sure you double the rub.  In order to get a good blackened fish fillet you want a solid covering of spice mix on your fish.  Oh, and you also want butter.  Of course you don't have to use the copious amounts of butter traditionally used when blackening fish:  CL has a terrific recipe for blackened catfish wraps (perhaps the greatest wrap ever created!) and I don't see why this recipe didn't just follow that one in terms of the fish.  I also don't like the use of tilapia in this recipe.  Blackening is a pretty aggressive cooking method and tilapia is simply too delicate.  The fish fell apart a good bit when I made this recipe and that never happens when I blacken catfish.  Other than that, the onion "sauce" was ho-hum.  This recipe could have been a lot better but as it stands, it's just not very good.  I won't make it again.

blackened tilapia baja tacos

Total: 20 minutes

Servings: 3

Cost: $15.76 /serving

Author : David Bonom

Ingredients

Instructions

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