This Jalapeño-Lime Sauce Will Take Your Fish Tacos From Good to Great (2024)

That tangy, slightly spicy white sauce that often accompanies Baja style fish tacos is usually made with sour cream, mayonnaise, and lime juice. Some variations have more ingredients, often including things like cumin, cilantro, or hot sauce. This recipe is the basic idea, but you should feel free to improvise with whatever you have on hand. The roasted jalapeño adds some smoky depth and gives the sauce a pleasant pale green hue. If you don't want to go to the trouble of preparing the pepper, any prepared hot sauce makes a good substitute. Use a teaspoon at a time until you reach your desired level of spiciness.

Tilapia Fish Tacos

This sauce is delightful on all kinds of other things besides fish tacos. Try it on shrimp tacos, all kinds of enchiladas, burgers, sandwiches, or as a dip for fish sticks, calamari, onion rings, or jalapeño poppers. Pretty much anything fried or sandwich-like will taste good with this sauce.

The sauce couldn't be easier to make. The hardest part is roasting and processing the pepper. Be careful when handling hot peppers—we've all had the experience of handling hot peppers and then touching our eyes or face. Ouch!

Roasted and Peeled Chile Peppers Recipe

Ingredients

1 small jalapeño pepper
1/3 cup Mexican crema, or sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
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1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 lime, juiced
1/4 teaspoon salt

Steps to Make It

Gather the ingredients.
Roast the jalapeño pepper over an open flame of a gas range or under the broiler of your oven until the pepper has softened and the skin is charred and blistered all over.
Remove to a cutting board. Remove the stem and blistered skin.
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Grilled Fish Tacos
Cut the pepper in half and remove the seeds and membrane.
Add the roasted jalapeño and all remaining ingredients to the bowl of a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Remove to a covered container or squeeze bottle and chill before using.

Tips

The easiest way to roast a jalapeño pepper is to use a long pair of tongs to hold the pepper over the open flame of a gas stove. If you don't have a gas stove, you can pan roast the pepper or char it under an electric broiler. You can use a toaster oven for this, too, which makes a little more sense than firing up the big oven when you're only roasting one little pepper. Turn the pepper as it roasts so that it chars on all sides, and let the flesh get nice and soft so that it purees into the sauce.
Putting the pepper into a bag or other covered container for a few minutes after roasting will loosen the skin and make it easier to remove. When handling the skin, seeds, and membranes, use gloves or take care to wash your hands thoroughly before moving on.
Store in the refrigerator for up to a month.

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Nutrition Facts (per serving)
123	Calories
13g	Fat
1g	Carbs
0g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 6to 8
Amount per serving
Calories	123
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 13g	17%
Saturated Fat 3g	16%
Cholesterol 14mg	5%
Sodium 205mg	9%
Total Carbohydrate 1g	1%
Dietary Fiber 0g	1%
Total Sugars 1g
Protein 0g
Vitamin C 4mg	22%
Calcium 12mg	1%
Iron 0mg	0%
Potassium 32mg	1%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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