The most delicious catfish recipes: turn your daily cooking into a gourmet experience

Dinner with catfish recipes at Mexicanist. Check out loads of catfish ideas like ceviche recipes, chipotle, catfish meatballs, steamed catfish, and many more.

The most delicious catfish recipes: turn your daily cooking into a gourmet experience
Ceviche. Image by Deyser Guevara Coronel from Pixabay

Native to Mexico, catfish is excellent food, both for its well-defined flavor and its high nutritional value. Lean fish in summer and autumn and semi-fat in winter-spring. Due to its fat content, its consumption is recommended twice a week during the winter-spring season, cooked, roasted, or grilled. In this season its caloric value is moderate. In summer-autumn, its consumption should be 3 to 4 times per week, since its caloric value is low, cooked, fried, or breaded. Its content of n-3 fatty acids and cholesterol remains without significant changes all year round.

Its protein content is good, with low cholesterol levels in spring-summer. Fish should be consumed as fresh as possible. If you are not going to eat it within 24 hours, it is best to freeze it. Fish are frozen at -45º and the cold network not having been interrupted offers excellent guarantees and is no worse than fresh. It also avoids the risk of anisakis. If you suspect by the taste, that you have eaten a piece of seafood or fish that is in bad condition, drink a glass of milk immediately after.

Scientific name: Ictalurus punctatus

Common names in Mexico: Bagre de canal (Channel catfish), chihuil, collarca, barbeta, bandera.

Remove the smell of fish in a house, burning ground coffee in a frying pan. It also works well to rub the fish with lemon before cooking. All fish dishes in the sauce will be tastier if the fish stock is added instead of water. It is not advisable to make cuts to the fish when it is going to be grilled, it will lose juices and will be drier. The heads and bones are excellent for fish soups. Do not throw them away, use them. To avoid the strong odor that the fish in the dishes can be dipped in a pot with highly charged tea or rub them with half an onion.

Catfish Ceviche recipe

4 servings

Ingredients:

1 ½ kg. of catfish

½ liter of lemon juice

Pepper

Garlic salt

Worcestershire sauce

Olive oil

1 onion

6 tomatoes

4 jalapeno peppers

½ bunch cilantro

Preparation:

Chop the fillet into cubes, marinate it in the lemon juice, add garlic salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and a little olive oil. Once the steak is cooked, remove the excess lemon juice and add the vegetables, let it rest for 10 minutes, and serve it cold.

Chipotle catfish recipe

4 servings

Ingredients:

4 pieces of catfish

1 can of chipotle chili of 250 gr.

250 gr. cream

100 gr. butter

Pepper

1 clove of garlic

1 cube of tomato bouillon

Worcestershire sauce

Preparation:

Fry the 4 catfish and prepare a sauce by blending the chipotle, the cream, the garlic, the diced tomato bouillon, the pepper, and the Worcestershire sauce and fry them in the butter. Serve the catfish and bathe them with the sauce.

Catfish meatballs recipe

4 servings

Ingredients:

3 pieces of catfish

2 bell peppers

1 onion

4 celery sticks

Pepper to taste

2 cloves of garlic

1 cube of chicken bouillon

Worcestershire sauce

Butter

Preparation:

Cook the catfish with salt and 2 cloves of garlic, chop all the vegetables finely and once the fish is cooked, shred it, fry the vegetables and add the fish pulp, season with the Worcestershire sauce and the chicken bouillon. Once the mixture is fried, the meatballs are formed.

Steamed catfish recipe

4 servings

Ingredients:

4 pieces of catfish

1 large aluminum foil

Butter

Worcestershire sauce

Soy sauce

8 celery sticks

4 bell peppers

3 onions

6 tomatoes

1 cube of powdered tomato bouillon

Olive oil

Preparation:

Spread the butter on the aluminum foil, cut the bell peppers, celery, onions, and tomatoes in strips (julienne cut) and place them on the aluminum foil, place the catfish on the vegetables, add olive oil, tomato bouillon powder, Worcestershire sauce, and soy sauce, distributed to taste, wrap it completely, place it on a hot griddle and leave it for approximately 20 minutes.

Catfish salpicon recipe

4 servings

Ingredients:

5 catfish

1 tablespoon garlic salt

Pepper

Oregano

4 tablespoons butter

Half a stick of achiote

1 cube of tomato bouillon

Worcestershire sauce

Soy sauce

Preparation:

Cook and crumble the catfish, blend the Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce (to taste) with the achiote and the tomato bouillon; fry the catfish pulp in the butter and garlic salt, and then add the blended mixture. Stir and let it heat over low heat for 5 minutes. Add pepper and oregano to taste.

Catfish fillet pescadito style recipe

4 servings

Ingredients:

600 grams of catfish fillet

1 onion

2 bell peppers

2 jalapeno peppers

5 pieces of mushrooms

5 drops of Worcestershire sauce

5 drops soy sauce

¼ cup olive oil

1 cube of tomato bouillon

Preparation:

Fry the 4 catfish fillets in the olive oil, and once fried, remove them from the pan. Julienne the onions, bell peppers, jalapeños, and mushrooms. Stir-fry all the vegetables, season and season with Worcestershire sauce, soy, and the diced tomato consommé. Serve the vegetables on top of the steaks.

Mojo fried catfish recipe

4 servings

Ingredients:

4 pieces of catfish

6 garlic cloves

1 jalapeño bell pepper

½ tomato

Salt and pepper

½ liter of water

2 tablespoons of butter

9 drops of soy

9 drops of Worcestershire sauce

1 cube of tomato bouillon

Preparation:

Fry the 4 catfish. Blend the garlic, chili, tomato, salt, and pepper together with the water. Fry the sauce in butter, season with the Worcestershire sauce, the soy, and the diced tomato consommé. In the end, bathe the catfish with this sauce.

Garlic catfish recipe

4 servings

Ingredients:

1 ½ kg. fried post fried catfish.

10 cloves garlic, sliced

¼ cup olive oil

3 guajillo chiles, chopped

1 cube of tomato bouillon

5 drops soy sauce

5 drops Worcestershire sauce

Preparation:

Fry the catfish. Prepare a sauce, browning garlic in a frying pan and then adding the guajillo chili, the Worcestershire sauce, the soy sauce, and the diced tomato bouillon. Once the sauce is finished, the fish is bathed in it.

Marinated catfish recipe

4 servings

Ingredients:

300 g catfish fillet, 4 pieces

16 g ancho chile 1 piece

5 g guajillo chili 1 piece

¼ piece onion 20 g

40 ml of olive oil (4 tablespoons)

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon salt

Preparation:

Boil the ancho and guajillo chiles. Then, blend them with the chopped garlic, cumin, black and white pepper, dried rosemary, cinnamon, cloves, thyme, and salt. Strain and fry the sauce in half of the oil. With the other half of the oil spread the fish and cover it on both sides with the sauce. Grill the fish on the griddle until it is soft and turn it occasionally. Note: It is ideal to serve with a nopales salad.

Catfish 2 times per week, cooked, roasted, or grilled.

Source: CONAPESCA