Air Fryer Fish Tacos

This is the Air Fryer Fish Taco recipe you’re looking for! It uses the air fryer to cook both the fish and to heat the tortillas, all while you make a delicious coleslaw that’s perfect with fish.

Video: Making Air Fryer Fish Tacos

Type of Fish For Fish Tacos

For this fish taco recipe, I usually use tilapia fillets as my fish. It’s tasty and mild and works great for tacos. In general, I prefer white fish for tacos and choose fish that is leaner and milder in flavor. I find that the mild flavors play well with all the other ingredients. Here are some types of fish that are great in fish tacos:

• Tilapia: As mentioned, it’s mild in flavor and is flaky, but it has a firm texture that gives it meatiness. It’s thin so it cooks quickly.
• Catfish: Like tilapia, catfish is mild-flavored and also a bit firm so it has that meaty texture. It isn’t as flaky as tilapia, but that’s fine for fish tacos. It’s thin and will cook in the times given in the recipe below.
• Halibut: A thicker fish, with a mild taste. This one will take a bit longer to cook in the air fryer. Start with the 7 minutes in the recipe, flip, and then cook until opaque throughout, about 3-5 more minutes.
• Cod: Thicker like halibut and needing that bit of extra cooking time. It’s a flaky fish with a mild flavor.
• Pollock: A bit of a stronger flavor due to slightly higher fat content, a coarse texture. These fillets will cook in the times given in the recipe below.
• Haddock: Mild, sweet taste, lean fish. Thin fillets that will cook in the times given.

Those are my top choices. Note that I do often make tacos with salmon though. When I’m doing so, I cook the salmon in the air fryer like this. I also love shrimp tacos like these, but sometimes I make super-easy shrimp tacos with the slaw below and by just cooking the shrimp straight from frozen like this.

Seasonings For Fish Tacos

The fish taco recipe below came about because I was always making this air fryer tilapia recipe and realized that those fillets would be amazing in tacos. So, the seasonings I use here are the same as those and are pretty simple, with just these: salt, black pepper, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and some oil. This combination adds great flavor but doesn’t overpower the fish, and also let’s the coleslaw’s delicious flavors come through too.

Coleslaw For Fish Tacos

In restaurants, fish tacos are often served with some kind of slaw in the tortillas with the fish. I just plain love that so that’s what I’ve done here. However, I really wanted these tacos to be easy to make and to assemble, so I created a coleslaw for fish tacos recipe that has flavors that are traditionally found in fish tacos, including sour cream, lime juice, chipotle in adobo, green onions, and cilantro. There’s also some mayonnaise in there, the cabbage, and salt and garlic powder. The coleslaw recipe is also given below as part of the fish taco recipe.

The great thing about this coleslaw is that you really can just put the fish into the taco shells and then top it with the slaw and start eating. You can of course add other things, like avocado, tomato, and cheese, but you don’t have to because the slaw is so full of taco flavors already.

Prep: Cook The Fish And Make The Slaw

Season the fish fillets and put them in the air fryer at 400°F for 7 minutes undisturbed. Open the air fryer and use a fork to check if the fish is opaque and flakes easily. If not, put them back in the air fryer until the fillets are cooked through, usually another 2-3 minutes.

Take the cooked tilapia out of the air fryer and cut into 2-inch pieces. We’re also going to warm our tortillas and build our tacos in the air fryer.

While the fish is cooking, you’ll make that slaw. If the cabbage is already shredded, the coleslaw mix comes together in minutes. If you have to slice the cabbage, you might want to get that going before you start cooking your fish, just so you don’t feel rushed.

How To Warm Tortillas In The Air Fryer Basket

If your air fryer has a basket (like this one), you’re in luck. That basket ends up being a miracle for taco cooking and assembly!

I fold the tortillas in half and then lean them against each other and against the sides of the basket, making open C-shaped pockets for the fillings to go into.

So, you’ll do that, and then you put some of the cooked fish into each tortilla. If you want melted cheese in your tacos, or any other ingredient that is of a small amount that you want heated (like a small smear of refried beans or some black beans), you can add that now as well.

The below photo is of finished tacos, which we’ll be getting to soon. But if you’re having trouble picturing what I mean about the tortillas leaning against each other and having fillings in them, this should help. You just don’t put the slaw or avocado in at this stage, that’s later.

The tortillas with just the fish inside (and any other ingredient you want warmed) go into the air fryer at 400°F. Flour tortillas take about 4 minutes and corn tortillas need 3-4 minutes. You just want to cook until warmed and starting to toast a little bit in places, but still soft.

How To Warm Tacos In An Air Fryer Without A Basket

If your air fryer is more oven-style and you don’t have the basket that the tortillas can lean on, that’s fine. Put one tortilla with the fish in it lying on its side on an air fryer baking sheet or tray. Ball up some aluminum foil and put it inside of the tortilla to hold it open. Then put your next tortilla, folded in half, beside the first, leaning on it, and add your cooked fish. Continue to lean the tortillas with fish against each other until your final one, which you will keep open with another ball of foil.

Note that if your air fryer situation doesn’t work for assembling tacos in this way, don’t worry. You can heat corn tortillas like this, and it will work for flour tortillas too. Or follow the package instructions. Then use the fish and the slaw to fill the heated shells.

Assembling Fish Tacos In The Air Fryer

You can see from that picture above that the basket of the air fryer is really helping us out here, right? It’s holding the tortillas open for us, so we can easily get toppings into there.

So then, with tortillas and fish still in the air fryer basket, divide the slaw among the tortillas. I use tongs to grab some slaw and slip it into the tacos.

As mentioned, the slaw already has everything you need for tasty fish tacos, but if you’d like extras, you can add some sliced avocado, cotija cheese or queso fresco, chopped tomato or this tasty pico de gallo, or a black bean and corn salsa like this one, or whatever else you’d like. Serve and enjoy!

How Many Tacos Can Fit In An Air Fryer?

I can fit 6 tacos in my air fryer basket. If I’m making this for 2-3 people, then I do the 6 tortillas, using 3 tilapia fillets and about 2/3 of the slaw.

If I am feeding 3-4 people, then I do 4 tacos in there, take them out and let people start eating while the other 4 are cooking. In that case, I cook 4 tilapia fillets and use all of the coleslaw mixture.