How to Cook Frozen Tilapia in Air Fryer: Tilapia fish Recipes

The benefit of a frozen fish fillet is that it stays in good quality, whether it’s a tilapia or other white fish. Unlike freshly cut fish, cooking frozen tilapia is a little bit different.

Keep in mind that you are not sacrificing taste or texture. IQF or individually quick-frozen fish fillets retain their original value when it comes to taste and texture. In this article, I’m going to show you how you can cook frozen tilapia at home.

How to Cook Frozen Tilapia at Home?

The first thing you should keep in mind that you have thaw the frozen tilapia beforehand. After you thaw the fish, you can start cooking them in the oven or on the stove. To thaw it, keep the fillets in cold water for a few minutes.

Quick Recipe:

If you are in a hurry, here is a quick tilapia recipe for you.

Tips for Pan Frying Frozen Tilapia

This information was brought to you by Julie Mancuso, B.A., R.H.N, a Toronto nutritionist and also the owner of JM Nutrition. She did an interview with LIVESTRONG to share some insight on cooking frozen tilapia.

The first thing you should keep in mind that it is possible to cook frozen tilapia in a frying pan, but the process will take longer. That’s why you should thaw it first.

Before being cooked, you should keep the fillets in cold water, or you can thaw them out in the fridge. That way, the fish will cook faster, and you will get an evenly cooked fish if they are thawed beforehand.

Also, avoid defrosting frozen tilapia or any other fish for that example in a microwave. There are a couple of reasons why you shouldn’t use a microwave.

Also, don’t use frozen fish that smells fishy. There is a good chance that the frozen fish contains bacteria.

When cooking tilapia on the stove, keep the pan on medium heat and use extra virgin olive oil. Add sliced lemon with the peel on and wait for the lemons to get brown.

One the lemon has browned, put in the tilapia in the pan. You can also add black pepper, sea salt, and fresh herbs such as parsley for flavor. Keep turning the fish a couple of times till you notice the insides are being flaked easily.

The whole cooking process will take about 10 minutes to finish.

Read more: The 10 best air fryer pressure cooker

Other Ways to Cook Frozen Tilapia

Here are some alternative ways that you can use to cook tilapia. You will need the following ingredients.

With these ingredients, there are two ways you can cook tilapia. You can bake the foil-wrapped tilapia in the oven or roll it with breadcrumbs to make it into a baked tilapia panko.

For the foil paper method, wrap each of the fillets separately with foil paper and add olive oil, sliced lemon, and parsley, pepper, and salt. Then put the wrapped pieces on a baking sheet and begin cooking in an oven for 30 minutes at 350-degree Fahrenheit.

The Marinade Way (Tilapia Fish Grill Recipe)

You can also grill tilapia fish after marinating. Consider this as an alternative method, and it’s required that you thaw the fish out first. Here are the ingredients for this recipe.

To create the marinade, create a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, parsley, black pepper, garlic, and Tabasco sauce. Then marinate the fillets for 30 minutes.

After that, take the fillets out of the marinade and put them on a hot grill. Now, grill the fillets for 2 to 3 minutes each side.

Tilapia with Cucumber Radish Relish

You can also get creative with this recipe. For instance, you can create a topping to spoon over the tilapia fillets. This way, the fish will take one a completely new personality.

By mixing together chopped radish, chopped cucumber, tarragon vinegar, salt, sugar, dried tarragon, and oil, you can create a tasty cucumber-radish relish. Take some butter, sauté the tilapia in a skillet, and finally serve it with the cucumber-radish relish.

Do you know what would go nicely with this dish? A salad as a side dish.

Cooking Tilapia Without Oil

If you want a simple and easy way of cooking fish without oil, bake them in the oven. It is as simple as that. With this method, you can have your baked fish ready to eat on the table in less than six minutes.

There are plenty of ways on how you can bake tilapia. In this section, I’m going to show you a simple recipe. Here are the ingredients.

First, take out tilapia fillets. The fillets should be ½-inch thick. Now, preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, and if the fillets are frozen, thaw them.

After that, spray a little amount of oil in the baking sheets. It’s so that the fish fillets don’t get stuck to the pan. Now, season the fillets with pepper and salt and place them on the sheets.

Make sure to season both sides well firmly. After that, place them in the oven. Wait for four minutes and check for flaky flesh or doneness. This means the white juice that comes out from the fish when you bake them.

Once you see them, it means the fish is baked and is now ready for you to eat.

Another method is to grill the tilapia. This is a great way to enjoy grilled fish without any of the fat. The seasoning is the same as before. The only thing you have to do is preheat the grill first to avoid drying out the fish.

In this grilling method, the cooking time will vary. It will take longer if you grill thick fillets.

Final Thoughts

The recipes mentioned above are just some simple ones that you can use at home. However, there are plenty of recipes that you can follow. You can even try out your own recipe when it comes to cooking fish.

Just keep in mind that whenever you want to cook frozen tilapia, you need to thaw it out beforehand.