My fish choice at the grocery store is often based upon the current market price of what they have available. This week, tilapia and the chowder mix were the only things worth shelling out for, and it has been a month or so since I last had tilapia. I wanted to try something new, though, so here is a simple recipe for rolled tilapia that came out really well.
Ingredients
- 1 or 2 tilapia filets per person
- 1 or 2 beaten eggs (depending upon quantity of tilapia filets being prepared)
- Bread crumbs and seasonings (to taste)
- Cheese
- Toothpicks
See? Not much to it. I used bread crumbs, basil, and cayenne pepper, but you can bread the fish with whatever you want. I had American cheese available, but next time I will make sure that I have montery jack on hand. I only needed one egg and could have easily coated a couple of pounds of fish, but I only had 3 filets (about 0.75 lbs).
Instructions
- Preheat the oven – prepare the filets while you wait for the oven to heat up to 375°.
- Clean the filets – assuming that you did not catch the fish yourself, rinsing them off should be fine.
- Mix bread crumbs and seasonings – just dump them onto a plate and shake or stir them up to mix them well.
- Coat and bread the filets – coat the filets with a beaten egg (or two) and then bread with your mixture of crumbs and seasonings.
- Top with cheese and roll – put slices of cheese (or shredded cheese, I suppose) on top of the tilapia filets and then roll them up. Keep them from unrolling by sticking toothpicks into them.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes – the filets will probably take at least 25 minutes to cook; keep an eye on them and try to get them out of the oven with half of an hour.
I served the tilapia filets over rice with some mixed vegetables on the side. It took me about 10 minutes total to prepare everything, including the rice and vegetables, and about 30 minutes for it all to cook. I try to have seafood at least once or twice a week, and this is a quick and easy meal that I will definately be making again.
That sounds really good. I like to flour my Tilapia with seasoning and cook in butter or margarine. Tilapia is an excellent tasting fish, and what makes it even better is its farm raised. Nice recipe! I may try it next time, since I’m a big fan of cheese too.
That is how I normally cook my tilapia if I am not going to be making a sandwich out of it. I wanted to try something different, though, and it is definately going in the recipe book*.
*My recipe book being my brain and a few random recipes that I share on the website -- I really aught to get around to writing more of them down…
I’ve never heard of Tilapia (I suspect it’s a local fish), but I love this type of food. Not sure about the cheese though -- sounds like an acquired taste 🙂
It’s an African fish, actually, but it is an invasive species that does well in other subtropical climates. The stuff that I get from the store comes from Florida, I believe. They grow very fast, though, and are often used to control plant infestations because they’ll eat just about anything.
They taste good, though, and are cheap, which is why I began eating them.