Try a twist on your Tuesday Taco night with these Gluten Free Asian Ahi Fish Tacos. The combination of seasoned fish, tangy carrot slaw, and a sweet teriyaki glaze is pure excitement!
I’m sitting here thinking about how I can possibly sleep and write this post all at the same time. Apparently there is no solution for this predicament. Why is that? I feel like women should be able to multitask at any given time, and one of those tasks should most definitely be sleeping. We just never get enough of it.
I shouldn’t say that I’m so tired just because I don’t get enough sleep. That’s only half of it. The other half is the fact that I fill my days with running from one activity to the next…actual running most often being my first activity of the day.
Today I felt really proactive and ran with Braelyn to school while she rode her bike. Then I ran back home, pushing Emry in the stroller. It was only a mile and a half round trip run, but then I decided to swim laps at the rec center pool after I drove Emry to preschool.
That’s where the tired kicked in.
I usually trade off babysitting with some other ladies and we swim for 30 minutes each. It’s just enough time to feel a good workout, but not get overly exhausted. Since today I had no kid to trade off for babysitting, I decided to swim a full mile. That’s 70 laps in the pool. Granted they are short laps, but 70 laps nonetheless.
There is something about swimming that just darn poops me out. I can be a ray of sunshine before I get in the water, but once I’m out it’s like every ounce of perk inside me has escaped my body. I think the chlorine just sucks it right out of me.
I’m telling you, I don’t know how these fishies do it. I mean, really, swimming around ALL DAY LONG. How in the heck do they survive??? They must have some mean metabolism or something.
And aside from those actual fish in the water, how do kids swim around all day long. I swear you throw them in the pool for hours with the intention to wear them out, and they come out of the pool more energized than when they went in. Really, it’s a supernatural phenomenon I think.
Emry loves swimming so much that for the past three days she has asked demanded that I fill up our blow up pool with the hose so she can jump, swim, dive, even cannonball into it. Yes, this is one of those cheap 1 1/2′ pools, but apparently doing cannonballs into the ground is “fun”?
But speaking of fish, not only do I aspire to swim like them, I also aspire to eat them. They probably don’t enjoy the latter aspiration as much as the first, but that’s their own fault. They taste too dang good, and plus they are super healthy, so you know, that’s just the fate of life.
I love making fish tacos with salmon, tilapia, and mahi mahi, but I have never tried it with ahi tuna. So, when Ben’s friend stopped by with a couple pounds of freshly caught ahi tuna, I knew exactly what I was doing.
Okay, actually I had no idea what I was doing since I had never cooked ahi before, but I knew I wanted that glorious fish to be wrapped up in some sort of taco. But not any ordinary Mexican fish taco. I was craving Asian, so Gluten Free Asian Ahi Fish Tacos became that night’s menu item.
Aside from trying to cook ahi for the first time, I was also in a huge time crunch to get dinner on the table. Not necessarily because we had anywhere to go or anything to do, but because it was 7:00 at night and my family was STARVING! I was trying to get dinner on the table as fast as I could before any epic meltdowns began.
Basically within the 5 minutes it took me to cook the fish on the skillet, I had made a slightly sweet and pleasantly tangy carrot slaw as well as whipped up a batch of this extremely easy microwave teriyaki sauce. Once those elements were done, all I had to do was slice up some avocados and cucumbers, rinse off some arugula and cilantro, and then throw some sriracha sauce and the rest of the lime wedges on the table. D-O-N-E!
Oh wait. I lied. Right before serving the tacos, I heated up some corn tortillas on the skillet while I toasted some sesame seeds in the toaster oven. Then I was D-O-N-E!
Which, by the way, have you ever had toasted sesame seeds??? They are delicious! I was surprised at how much flavor a tiny toasted little seed can add to a meal. Even with all the other elements of these tacos, I could totally pick up on the sesame seed flavor. It was worth the 2 minutes of toasting indeed.
Now to touch on the ahi for a moment. I realize that a few of you (or many of you) may be outraged by the color of my ahi in these pictures. A true ahi lover eats their tuna seared on the outside and rare in the middle.
However, my children were involved in this meal, as they are about 360 nights of the year. And guess what? My children do NOT prefer their ahi rare. And thus I cooked it just barely through. It was still flaky and moist and not the least bit dry in the center. So cook according to your preference here. Whether barely seared or cooked through, the flavor from the spice mix as well as cooking it in a mixture of olive and sesame oil gives it such a lovely flavor.
And on another note, I had to take a break in the middle of writing this post to take Braelyn to her swim lesson. As soon as we returned home, she ran outside to our blowup pool, turned on the hose, and flailed around in the water with little sister. See, where does all this energy come from?!
And on another nother note…I just realized that when I started writing this post, Emry was watching Finding Nemo. Seriously, I’m surrounded by fish today. Fish is in the air, I guess…or, I mean, water.
How do you like your ahi cooked?
- For the fish:
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 lb. fresh Ahi tuna steak
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon Chinese five spice
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground mustard
- 1 teaspoon fresh squeezed lime juice
- For the carrot slaw:
- 1 cup shredded carrots
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon fresh squeezed lime juice
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- dash of salt
- dash of pepper
- For the teriyaki sauce:
- ¼ cup gluten free teriyaki sauce*
- 1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- ½ teaspoon sesame oil
- ¼ teaspoon garlic juice from jarred garlic, or garlic powder
- Taco fixings:
- Toasted sesame seeds**, cilantro, thinly sliced cucumber, avocado, sriracha sauce, arugula, lime wedges to squeeze, and white or yellow corn tortillas
- To make the fish, combine salt, Chinese five spice, garlic powder, and ground mustard. Season both sides of the fish with mixture. Squeeze lime juice onto fish and rub fish with fingers to incorporate seasonings and juice. Let sit for 5-10 minutes.
- In a skillet, heat 2 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Once pan is hot enough that a drop of water sizzles, place fish into pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side depended on preference. 2 minutes for a rare center, and 3 minutes for cooked through.
- While fish is cooking, shred carrots and toss in rice vinegar, lime juice, sugar, salt, and pepper. Set aside.
- Make teriyaki sauce by combining all ingredients into a microwave safe dish. Stir together and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Remove and stir. Let sit to thicken. If mixture is still too thin after cooling, return to microwave for an additional 45 seconds to 1 minute.
- To prepare tacos, heat corn tortillas according to package directions and fill with fish, carrot slaw, teriyaki sauce, and other desired toppings.
**Toast in toaster over for about 2-3 minutes until golden brown. Watch carefully because they can burn fast.
