One of my favorite activities is fly fishing in the Carpathian mountains for trout. There’s plenty of ways to cook this tasty fish, but one of my favorites is to deep fry it and make rainbow trout tacos.

Being from California I’m a big fan of the Baja style fish taco. And now that I live in Europe, I still get cravings. What to do? Well, I’ll make them at home! You can use plenty of fish for fish tacos, and in this recipe I’m going to use delicious rainbow trout.

Normally I bake Carpathian trout under sour cream since that is the popular way to do it where I live. However since trout is so versatile you can grill it, stuff it, or even use leftovers for an easy and spreadable trout salad.

Do I Need To Fillet An Entire Trout?

two whole rainbow trout and a fancy Japanese knife on a cutting board

If you can find trout fillets at your local fishmonger than you can absolutely buy them for this recipe. Oftentimes you will have to buy trout whole, but it is very easy to fillet a trout…which you should learn if you go catch them yourself.

Many supermarkets these days have frozen trout fillets already prepared, and since we don’t care about the whole fish look go ahead and get those to save time in this recipe.

How To Make Fried Rainbow Trout Tacos

Since these are Baja style fish tacos you can use flour tortillas. Other than that, most of the ingredients are simple things you probably already have, or things easy to get at your grocery store. I top these trout tacos with some homemade sour cherry pickled cabbage, but you can leave that ingredient out if you like.

Ingredients

1 kg Rainbow Trout – because rainbow trout can be all different sizes, it’s best to go by weight. My two trout, after gutting and filleting went from 1 kg down to 1/2 kg, or a little more than a pound. So if you are buying frozen trout meat then aim for 500 grams total weight.

8 Flour Tortillas – street style, so quite small

1 small White Onion – chopped

Pickled Cabbage – optional

Cilantro – to taste

2 cups Flour

1 tbsp Paprika

1 tbsp Garlic Powder

2 tsp Salt

Oil – for frying

Condiments & Sauces – as desired

Rainbow Trout fillets before removing the skin

The first thing to do if you have whole fish is to fillet it. Use tweezers to remove the pin bones, and peel off the skin. Cut the trout meat into 1-2 bite pieces.

pieces of chopped rainbow trout next to a bowl of dry flour mix

In another bowl add the flour, paprika, garlic powder, and salt. Whisk everything together, then trickle in roughly 2 cups of water (1:1 ratio of flour to water) until you have a nice batter. Since trout is a fatty fish we are using a pretty thick batter. If you use a more flaky whitefish like cod you can make beer battered fish tacos with the best beer batter ever.

pot of oil, bowl of batter, and pieces of rainbow trout all on a cooktop

Set up a frying station with a pot of oil, your plate of fish, and the bowl of batter.

using tongs to coat the pieces of rainbow trout in the batter before frying

Add the trout pieces to the batter and pull them out one by one to fry in the very hot oil. They only take a minute or two to be crispy golden brown. Only fry 4-5 pieces at a time, or more if you use a large pot. You don’t want to crowd the pot or all the trout pieces will stick together.

fried fish on a paper towel next to a pot of bubbling sunflower oil

Place all the fried trout pieces on a paper towel lined plate so they can get rid of their excess oil. Once all the trout is done frying you can start on making the tacos.

Rainbow Trout Tacos ready to be built in a taco station sort of setup

Think of this step as a guide, since you don’t have to build your rainbow trout tacos the same way. I first heat up the tortillas on an open flame. Then into the middle of the tortilla I add pieces of trout, drizzle with some garlic crema, top with avocado slices and pickled cabbage, then sprinkle over white onion and cilantro. I also add a some of my homemade carolina reaper hot sauce, because it goes great with fish, and makes everything better (opinion of course).