Fish Taco Bowls
The best weeknight meal! With perfectly cooked fish, cilantro lime rice, pico de gallo, avocado, and THE MOST epic cilantro lime dressing!
Hello to my new favorite meal of 2019.
I’m serious. I will be eating this all year starting now until the end of 2019. I mean, hello, fried fish taco bowls? Yes, yes, 1000%.
Now please don’t be intimidated by the ingredient list. It seems like a lot but don’t worry – there’s a lot of overlap between the cilantro lime rice and the best ever cilantro lime dressing.
And you can always take some shortcuts by using store-bought pico de gallo. No judgment here.
I just ask that you don’t skimp on the cilantro lime rice! The more lime juice, the more cilantro, the better.
Oh, and the tortilla chips. Yes, you’ll definitely need those for snacking and “spooning” purposes!
Fish Taco Bowls
Ingredients
- 1 cup basmati rice
- ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
- 1 cup canola oil, or more, as needed
- 1 pound fresh cod fillets, cut into 3/4-inch thick strips
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 1 ¼ cups Panko*
- 2 cups shredded purple cabbage
- 1 cup pico de gallo, homemade or store-bought
- 1 avocado, halved, seeded, peeled and sliced
For the cilantro lime dressing
- 1 cup loosely packed cilantro, stems removed
- ½ cup plain Greek yogurt
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
- Pinch of salt
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- To make the cilantro lime dressing, combine cilantro, Greek yogurt, garlic, lime juice and salt in the bowl of a food processor. With the motor running, add olive oil and vinegar in a slow stream until emulsified; set aside.
- In a large saucepan of 2 cups water, cook rice according to package instructions. Stir in cilantro and lime juice; set aside.
- Heat canola oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.
- Season cod with chili powder, salt and pepper, to taste. Working one at a time, dredge cod in flour, dip into eggs, then dredge in Panko, pressing to coat.
- Working in batches, add cod to the skillet and cook until evenly golden and crispy, about 3-4 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.
- Divide rice mixture into bowls. Top with cod, cabbage, pico de gallo and avocado.
- Serve with cilantro lime dressing
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
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Can I substitute mahi mahi for the cod?
Do you think I could fry the fish in the airfryer? I’m excited to try it!
Loved the fish taco bowl will definitely make it again . Do you ever include calorie counts with your recipes?
This dish, along with so many you include on your site, was fabulous! My daughter who is a nursing mother, cannot eat dairy or soy so we adjusted the dressing by using soy-free mayo and a little honey. Perfect weeknight meal.
Just cooked this . It was classy and excellent except for one dish which I had high expectations for. The cilantro lime dressing was sour to the point of being bitter. Didn’t contribute to the dish. From the comments and thoughts from the cook and other guests, it had to be my bad. I need to correct this as I desire to use this recipe often due to its other merits. Any advice is appreciated.
Really good recipe – the cod was fantastic. Could see making that alone in the future for other meals like fish tacos or fish and chips! Everything came together really deliciously. We like spice, so next time I might blend a jalepeno in the cilantro lime sauce to add a kick!
I cooked the cod without the breading on a grill pan but otherwise followed the recipe. So much deliciousness! Everyone loved it! Definitely going to become a regular meal on our table. Maybe you could add an amount of lime juice instead of juice of one lime. The amount of juice in a lime varies so much. Mine was especially juicy this time and ended up leaving about half of it out.
This meal is one of our favs!! I’m a single mom and I’ve improvised with a few shortcuts, such as microwave rice, grape tomatoes and baked fish filets. Still so healthy. Nevertheless, this is an out of this world recipe! The dressing makes it a home run. It is, for sure, Damn Delicious!!
We love that you tried it so many different ways! Thanks for sharing with us! 🙂
Really awesome flavors! It’s exactly what you want a recipe to be, balanced, delicious, and exciting! So happy we tried it. We used rock cod because we have a lot of it and we wanted a recipe that would balance its stronger flavor. Worked like a charm! Would be even better with a milder fish. Great recipe!
Thank you for your feedback!
Made this tonight, IT WAS SO GOOD!!! And that Cilantro lime dressing is bomb, I will be putting that on everything from now on!!!! Can’t wait to make it again!!!
Sweet!
Made these tonight and they were super yummy. I used tilapia instead of cod, and used bottled cilantro avocado Greek yogurt dressing that I already had. Both my husband and I were huge fans. Will make the dressing next time, just wanted to use up what we had on hand already.
Thanks for sharing, Julia!
Love your website! Made several recipes and all came out DAMN DELICIOUS! Can you make some vegan instant pot recipes? Or just more instant pot recipes in general? That would be great!!!! Thanks for all that you do!!!!!!
I’m so hungry right now…this sounds delish!
I am definitely going to try this out. We love fish tacos & I always use Napa cabbage & make my own pink sauce using chipotle peppers in adobo, but if your cilantro lime dressing is the best ever, I may have to make a little to try. Can’t just not make my pink sauce or their may be a mutiny but providing a choice might work.
I cannot for the life of me get used to cilantro. Any suggestions on a substitution?
Unfortunately, without further recipe testing, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment when making substitutions and modifications.
Cilantro has a really unique flavour which I personally love, but I cook for a lot of people who don’t share my cilantro obsession. Substituting Italian parsley will change the flavour of the dish but usually works out well.