Modest Meals: Oven Baked Tilapia with Veggies

This recipe pushes the envelope for my Modest Meals series a bit because it takes a full 30 minutes+ to make but it is super easy, cheap and pretty tasty, though my wife thought it was a bit too spicy. It has a bit of a Cajun taste and slight kick to it, but  I didn’t think it was too much. By the way, for those of you who are unfamiliar, Tilapia is a type of fish 😉

Oven Baked Tilapia with Veggies:

• 1 lb Tilapia Fillets, frozen or fresh (cost $12 for a box of 4 lbs, so $3 for 1lb, 4 fillets)
• 16 oz Frozen Veggies, whatever kind you like (about $2 a bag)
• 1 Lemon (about 60 cents)
• 1 Teaspoon Celery Salt
• 1 Teaspoon Black Pepper
• 1 Teaspoon Paprika
• 1/4 Teaspoon Red Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Run warm water over frozen Tilapia for about 5 minutes.
3. Wipe 9″x13″ pan with olive oil.
4. Place Tilapia in center of pan.
5. Dash with Celery Salt, Red and Black Pepper and Paprika.
6. Add a few slices of lemon.
7. Thaw and strain veggies, place around fish, sprinkle with salt and pepper
8. Cover with foil, and bake for about 10 Minutes, remove cover and continue to bake another 15-20minutes.

Total cost: about $6 and 35 minutes to prep and cook.

This recipe makes enough to feed 4-6 people and keeps for only a few days in the fridge.

The availability of this fish, frozen or fresh may be different in different areas, as well as price.

I thought the recipe turned out pretty good but I forgot to thaw the veggies and strain them before adding them to the dish so there was excess water in the pan when it was finished. I just drained the water and let it stay in the oven a few more minutes to dry everything out a bit more.

The veggies I used for this were cauliflower and broccoli but any kind of frozen veggies would work such as actual mixed veggies, carrots, or even stir fry mix. I just happened to have half a bag of each of these so I thought I would mix it up a bit.

We eat this without any sides but it would go great with long grain white rice, or dirty rice.

As for additional pictures of this, the before cooking and after cooking looked almost identical so I won’t add them to Flickr.

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Tags: 1lb, 30 minutes, black pepper, broccoli, cajun taste, carrots, cauliflower, excess water, few more minutes, frozen veggies, long grain, olive oil, oven baked tilapia, red pepper, salt and pepper, teaspoon celery salt, teaspoon paprika, thaw, type of fish, warm water, white rice, x13