Sweet and Sour Fish

Learn how to make a popular seafood dish from China, sweet and sour fish.  This Chinese seafood is incredibly delicious and easy to make.

This homestyle meal (known as Tang Cu Yu (糖醋鱼)), would be the perfect addition to your family dinner table, any weeknight or for a gathering or fun occasion.

Why You'll Love this Chinese Seafood Recipe

Sweet and sour fish is one of the most popular seafood dishes you can find at Chinese restaurants.

Today I am going to show you how to make good restaurant-style sweet and sour fish fillets. This dish tastes similar or even better than take-out, and is much healthier and cheaper!

The Ingredients:

This dish consists of white fish that is smothered in a Cantonese-inspired sweet and sour sauce.

To add fresh colors to the dish I added in some diced red bell pepper, green bell pepper, and yellow onions. 

Some people opt to add pineapple into this dish.  I sometimes do, but other times I like the dish to have a little less sweet of a taste.   

The Best Fish to Use

In this recipe, I used cod fillets that I marinated with a classic Chinese marinade sauce.

I also added lightly beaten eggs and corn starch flour in the wok prior to adding the deep-fried the fillets, which I then cooked until golden browned in color.

Haddock, catfish, pollock, or similar mild white fish can also be used to make this recipe.

Homemade Sweet and Sour Sauce:

This homemade sweet and sour sauce is absolutely amazing and customizable.

It has the perfect balance of sweetness and tanginess from pineapple juice, vinegar, and sugar.

It's also garlicky and gingery. You can even use the same recipe for the sweet and sour sauce to make sweet and sour chicken or sweet and sour pork!

One of the best things about this homemade sweet and sour sauce is that you can adjust the sweetness or tanginess by adding extra sugar or vinegar until you reach the desired taste.

This sauce uses 100% pineapple juice as one of the main ingredients.

The pineapple juice gives natural sweetness and tanginess to the dish, which also offers some health benefits. I think it's better than using all refined sugar like many restaurants do when making this sauce.

Easy Cooking Process

The cooking process of this dish is pretty easy and quick.

1. First, marinate the fish, then mix in the eggs and flour.
2. Second, deep fry the fish until golden brown. This process runs pretty quickly, just be ready for some oil splatter 🙂
3. Next, make the homemade sweet and sour sauce.
4. Lastly, you will need to cook the other ingredients, then add fish and sauce. 

Homemade Chinese Food Without MSG

When planning a recipe like this I think of different ways to make the dish healthier, which oftentimes actually makes it taste better too. 

I eat much less deep-fried foods than I used to and also try to cut back my MSG consumption.

This fish dish is so delicious, and when you try recipes like this and can say “wow, it tastes better without MSG”, you’ll never want to go back. 

While this recipe isn’t as healthy as a salad you’re still getting some veggies and fish, and the sauce that I use has much less sugar than most out there, which lets the other flavors shine through.

Check Out More Asian Recipes:

• HUNAN BEEF WITH CUMIN
• INSTANT POT MONGOLIAN BEEF
• SINGAPORE NOODLES (XING ZHOU MI FEN)
• GENERAL TSO’S CHICKEN (SWEET AND SAVORY DEEP-FRIED CHICKEN)
• VEGETABLE STIR FRY WITH TOFU
• BEST PORK TENDERLOIN STIR FRY
• ASIAN GROUND BEEF STIR FRY
• THAI SALAD DRESSING
• MINCED PORK NOODLES WITH HOISIN SAUCE
• CHINESE EGGPLANT WITH MINCED PORK
• SHRIMP AND GREEN PEAS STIR FRY
• SESAME NOODLES (MA JIANG MIAN)