Blackened Tilapia
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Blackened tilapia makes a super quick and flavorful weeknight meal. You can have it on the table in just 15 minutes!
Tilapia is a flaky, mild-tasting, inexpensive, and readily available white fish that’s super easy to cook and prepare. It is especially good blackened, which doesn’t mean burnt but rather coated in a Cajun-style spice blend that takes on a dark reddish-brown, almost black color when cooked. In this quick and simple recipe, the fish fillets are dusted with a rub made from spices, brown sugar, and salt and then sautéed in olive oil until blackened and flaky.
Serve the blackened tilapia with a vegetable, like roasted asparagus, along with cornbread muffins, cilantro lime rice, hush puppies, or cheddar bay biscuits.
“First time making tilapia this way. Now, it’s gonna be my only way.”
What You’ll Need To Make Blackened Tilapia
Step-by-Step Instructions
Begin by making the Cajun spice rub. In a small bowl, combine paprika, brown sugar, oregano, salt, cumin, garlic powder, and cayenne. Don’t worry about the amount of cayenne — the spice rub has a little kick but the dish won’t be too spicy, even for kids.
Mix to combine.
Evenly dust the spice rub all over the tilapia fillets.
Heat the olive oil in a large nonstick pan, then add the tilapia, presentation side down.
Cook a few minutes per side, until crisp and reddish-brown (“blackened”) on the outside and flaky on the inside.
Enjoy!
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Blackened Tilapia
Ingredients
- 1½ teaspoons paprika
- 1½ teaspoons light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ¾ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 (6-oz) tilapia fillets
- 1 lime, cut into wedges (optional, for serving)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, for cooking
Instructions
- Combine the paprika, brown sugar, oregano, garlic powder, cumin, cayenne pepper and salt in a small bowl; mix until well combined (use your fingers to break up the lumps of brown sugar). Sprinkle the spice rub evenly over both sides of the tilapia fillets.
- Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large non-stick pan. Cook the fillets for 2 to 3 minutes on each side until reddish-brown on the outside and flaky on the inside. Serve immediately with lime wedges.
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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Thanks for this recipe! We love it and have made it once a week for the last number of weeks! We plan to try the spice blend for chicken on the grill next. The flavors are excellent!
Simple and yet flavorful recipe!
Delicious! Really nice flavor. Whole family loved.
So easy, so delicious and so healthy. Can’t get better than that. My husband (a gourmet cook) and my son (a gourmand) both loved it. I served it with your salad with peanut dressing.
I’ve shared your website with others, who also rave about the recipes. Thank you for making us look good!
Would this be ok if grilled on the BBQ?
Thanks for all your great recipes!! Made your Kung Pao chicken tonight and it was delicious!!!
Hi Emily, I’d be a bit concerned that it would stick as it’s such a thin fish and may stick to the grates and fall apart. You could use foil packets; the only thing is that you won’t get that nice sear, which adds texture and flavor. Please LMK how it turns out if you try it!
One of the best fish recipes I have ever made. We all really enjoyed it. My 8 year old took a tiny taste and asked for more! Great recipe, good flavor, and it came together easily for a weeknight dinner. Another winner from Jen!
This was perfect! Just the right amount of not-too-spicy yet totally awesome flavor to appeal to the kids as well as the adults. This recipe is a definite keeper!
Super yummy. I didn’t have brown sugar, but this still tasted great!
Absolutely DELICIOUS!! I’m not a huge fish fan, so I was hoping to find a recipe with great flavor and texture. This is definitely it! Thanks for sharing such a wonderful dish!
Absolutely delicious! I made this with sea bass fillets instead, and they looked as wonderful as they tasted!
On its own, the spice mix tasted a little hot; I was a bit worried kids would complain, but the finished product had the perfect amount of heat-I’d say very mild heat.
Since I had 4 large fillets, I cooked 2, put them in dish, squeezed lemon all over them and covered with foil while I prepared the rest.
Thank you for making me look like such a good cook 🙂