Shallow-fried whole tilapia in a bright escabeche sauce is a classic home-cooked Filipino dish you can always fall back on.
Make your fried fish more exciting by draping it with a zippy, savory escabeche sauce: a vinegar-forward dressing with thinly sliced ginger, carrots, and red bell peppers. A whole tilapia is the classic move for Filipino escabeche, but you can easily swap in lapu-lapu, maya-maya, or pompano. Escabeche means “pickle” or “marinate”—the final step of having the fish soak up the sauce before serving comes from its Spanish influences.
Both are dishes of a tangy reddish sauce poured over fried fish, but they’re not the same!
Filipino escabeche has Spanish roots. It generally refers to cooked seafood or meat (not just fish!) marinated in an acidic sauce—usually made with vinegar—seasoned with spices like paprika.
90% of the time, Filipino escabeche means fish. The sauce stays vinegar-forward, but with ginger as the main aromatic. There’s just enough sugar to tame the acidity. Matchstick-cut carrots and bell peppers, sometimes even atchara, add crunch and contrast. The escabeche is served hot, and the flavor is sharply tangy and slightly sweet.
Chinese sweet and sour fish uses a ketchup-based sauce balanced with vinegar and sugar. Most of the time, it’ll have chunks of pineapples, bell peppers, and onions. The sauce is sweeter, fruitier, and often gloopier.
Use pan-fried You can make escabeche out of almost any fish, making it a lutong bahay staple you can never get tired of coming back to.
Prep fish: Pat tilapia dry with paper towels to remove excess moisture. Season both sides liberally with salt and pepper.
Fry fish: Pour neutral oil to fill a deep, medium frying pan about halfway. Heat oil over medium heat until it registers 350°F (176°C) on an instant-read thermometer.
Gently slip the tilapia into the hot oil. Fry for 5–7 minutes per side, or until skin is crisp and meat flakes easily. Transfer fried fish to a metal rack or paper towel-lined plate.
Cook aromatics: In a separate medium pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add garlic, red onions, and ginger. Cook, stirring frequently, until soft and fragrant, about 2–3 minutes.
Add vegetables: Add carrots and bell peppers. Cook, stirring frequently, for another 2 minutes.
Build sauce: Pour in vinegar, water, sugar, and soy sauce. Let cook undisturbed for 30 seconds to cook off the vinegar’s acidity. Stir and simmer for 3–4 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
To thicken sauce, combine cornstarch and water in a small dish to make a slurry. Stir in slurry to the sauce and continue simmering until thickened to your desired consistency.
Serve: Arrange fried fish on a large serving platter. Pour hot escabeche sauce all over the fish. Let sit for 3–5 minutes so the sauce settles into the fish. Serve warm with steamed rice.
