Vegan Beer Battered Crispy Fish Sandwich

When I was in college I ate a lot of McDonald’s fish filet sandwiches.

I am not proud of this but, I was young, and broke, and loved that dang sandwich.

Once I was older and had more money, fish and chips, or a fried fish fillet sandwich was one of my go to orders on any menu that had it.

Then we went vegan and I missed fried fish, plain and simple.

And then one day I learned the magic a can of BANANA BLOSSOMS can yield, it was a game changer.

I probably had not had a fish sandwich or fried fish in over 5 years when I discovered this vegan secret.

The first step was finding the banana blossoms. Easy enough if you have an Asian market near by, but can also be easily ordered online, as well. (that said they are WAY cheaper at the Asian market than they are online)

I paid less than $2.50 a can for these blossoms. So between the “fish” fillets, buns, and toppings, you can feed 4-6 people for maybe around $10. You really can’t beat that!

For this recipe I also made a quick batch of vegan no rise hamburger buns. They are cheap and easy to make and are done start to finish in less than an hour!!

I used a beer batter for my fried vegan fish fillets, but you can use seltzer water if beer isn’t your thing. If it is your thing, then you are gonna extra love this sandwich!

These banana blossoms fry up fast and get extra crispy, perfect for this vegan fish sandwich, vegan fish and chips, or even vegan fish tacos.

The blossoms flake and full apart like fish, and with the help of some seaweed flakes and Old Bay for flavor, they make for the most convincing mock vegan fish!

So if you have yet to jump on the banana blossom bandwagon and have been missing some crispy fried fish or a crispy fish sandwich, this is your answer!

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INGREDIENTS:

The Fish Filets:

• 2 cans banana blossoms in brine

• 2 tablespoons dulse flakes

• 1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon old bay seasoning (optional)

• 3 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 can (12 oz) cold beer, any beer is fine as long as it is not a dark thick beer

• oil for frying

Sandwich Makings:

• 4-5 buns, store bought or homemade No Rise Buns

• 4-6 slices vegan cheddar or vegan American cheese

• sliced dill pickles

• lettuce

Vegan Tartar Sauce:

• 1/2 cup vegan mayo

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

• 2 - 3 tablespoons diced dill pickles

• 1 teaspoon sugar

• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard

• salt and pepper to taste

• 2 teaspoons fresh dill

• optional: 1 - 2 teaspoons capers

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. If making homemade no rise hamburger buns for this recipes, do that first. They are pretty easy, and start to finish take less than an hour.

2. Drain cans of banana blossoms and carefully remove the blossoms, laying them out on a paper towel to remove some liquid. They can easily fall apart so be careful. I found that only a few blossoms in each can were fully in tact. I simply took all of the loose leaves from each can and stacked them back together to resemble full blossoms. I have only been able to find one brand of blossoms on Amazon. I am uncertain if this is an issue with all canned banana blossoms, but stacking the leaves back together worked just fine for me.

3. Transfer the blossoms to a shallow baking dish and sprinkle with the 2 teaspoons of dulce flakes and a dash of salt.

4. For the batter, whisk together the flour, baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, old bay, and the entire can of cold beer in a medium sized bowl. The batter will be thick.

5. To make the tartar sauce, whisk all of the ingredients together in a medium sized bowl and set aside.

6. Heat a deep skillet with a few inches of oil over medium/ high heat.

7. While the oil is heating, begin carefully dipping the blossoms into the batter. For any blossoms that you had to reassemble, place them into the batter, and using a spoon, cover the top in batter. This will help keep the blossom in tact vs attempting to dip them. Carefully transfer the blossoms to the hot oil. TIP: if you are not sure if the oil is hot enough, place a chopstick into the oil, if tiny bubbles form around the chopstick, the oil is ready!

8. Fry each blossom for a minute or two on each side, or until they are golden brown. If they seem to be browning too quickly, reduce your heat a bit. Transfer the finished blossoms to a wire cooling rack that has been placed on top of a paper towel lined cookie sheet.

9. Build the sandwiches by spreading the vegan tarter sauce on both sides of the buns. Add a vegan fish fillet to each bun, along with some sliced pickles, a slice of cheese and some lettuce to serve.

If you like this recipe, then try these:

Vegan Fish Tacos

Vegan Jackfruit Tuna Salad

Vegan Beer Battered Fried Fish

Vegan Beer Battered Fish Tacos

The magic of battering and frying up banana blossoms is mind boggling. It looks like, feels like, and tastes like fried fish!

So aside from eating a giant plate of vegan beer battered fried fish fillets(which I will gladly do with some fries and tarter sauce) fish tacos are my next favorite way to enjoy this magic!

Now, I know most people serve fish tacos on a flour tortillas, but the fact is, if you know how to prepare corn tortillas, they reign supreme over flour all day! I was pretty anti corn tortillas until someone (my brother in law, Dan) showed me if you cook them in a hot pan with a little oil and seasoning, they are seriously the best thing.

We also made the slaw with sauerkraut instead of fresh cabbage for this recipe. We make our own quick dill kraut, and it is the perfect amount of briny tang, mixed with creamy vegan mayo, and little sugar to round out these tacos. If you have never made a slaw from kraut, as my mom always says, don’t knock it til you try it! It’s also a convenient option if you do not have any fresh cabbage on hand. I normally have a jar of sauerkraut in the fridge making a quick slaw that much quicker.

And lets not forget the '“fish” is beer battered, so as far as I am concerned, there is nothing not to love about these tasty vegan fish tacos!

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INGREDIENTS:

• 1 can of banana blossoms in brine

• 3/4 cups all purpose white flour

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon old bay

• 1 teaspoons dulse flakes

• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/2 can of cold beer, any beer is fine as long as it’s not a dark, thick beer

• Oil for frying (I used peanut)

• 8-10 corn tortillas

• 1 lime

• 1 avocado

• 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder

• 2-3 tablespoons plain vegan yogurt or sour cream

The Slaw:

• 1 cup quick dill sauerkraut (or any sauerkraut you have)

• 1/4 red onion thinly sliced

• 1/4 cup shredded carrots

• 2 tablespoons vegan mayo

• 1-2 tablespoons sugar, or agave

• A few shakes of dried parsley or cilantro

• black pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Mash the avocado and mix it with juice from half of the lime, sour cream or yogurt, garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste until it is nice and creamy. You can also drop all of the ingredients into a bullet blender or food processor. Set aside.

2. Mix the sauerkraut (not the juice, just the cabbage) and remaining slaw ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Set aside.

3. Drain can of banana blossoms and carefully remove the blossoms, laying them out on a paper towel to remove some liquid. They can easily fall apart so be careful. I found that only a few blossoms in the can that were fully in tact. I simply took all of the loose leaves and stacked them back together to resemble full blossoms. I have only been able to find one brand of blossoms on Amazon. I am uncertain if this is an issue with all canned banana blossoms, but stacking the leaves back together worked just fine for me.

4. Transfer the blossoms to a shallow baking dish and sprinkle with the 2 teaspoons of dulce flakes and a dash of salt.

5. For the batter, whisk together the flour, baking powder, teaspoon salt, old bay, and 1/2 can of cold beer (oh well, guess you have to drink the rest) in a medium sized bowl. The batter will be thick.

6. Heat a deep skillet with a few inches of oil over medium/ high heat.

7. While the oil is heating, begin carefully dipping the blossoms into the batter. For any blossoms that you had to reassemble, place them into the batter, and using a spoon, cover the top in batter. This will help keep the blossom in tact vs attempting to dip them. Carefully transfer the blossoms to the hot oil. TIP: if you are not sure if the oil is hot enough, place a chopstick into the oil, if tiny bubbles form around the chopstick, the oil is ready!

8. Fry each blossom for a minute or two on each side, or until they are golden brown. If they seem to be browning too quickly, reduce your heat a bit. Transfer the finished blossoms to a wire cooling rack that has been placed on top of a paper towel lined cookie sheet.

9. Heat a large skillet and spray with some cooking oil. Heat tortillas on each side, sprinkling them with a little all purpose seasoning, or any seasoning you like, and a squirt of lime juice. You just need to let them heat for a minute or two on each side, just until they get a little brown and crisp. This will help the tortillas taste amazing and not rip.

10. Cut fish fillets into bite size pieces. Place a few “fish” pieces in each tortilla, along with some slaw, and a drizzle of avocado cream to serve.

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serves 4-6

If you liked this recipe, try these:

Beer Battered Vegan Fried Fish Fillets

Alabama White Sauce Tempeh Tacos

Grilled Watermelon and Tofu Tacos

Beer Battered Vegan Fried Fish Filets (Fish and Chips)

Before we went vegan, I could have lived off of fried fish and chips!

Beer battered cod was an all time fave that I never passed up.

Imagine my excitement when I discovered I could batter and fry canned banana blossoms and feel like I was eating one of my favorite foods from years past! I think I probably squealed a little!

The banana blossoms somehow magically recreates the texture of flaky fish fillet. They are really mild in flavor and with the help of some seaweed flakes for a fishy kick, it is remarkable how convincing these blossoms are! I mean seriously, who thought of this to begin with. I need to give them a hug!

I looked high and low for banana blossoms at my local Asian markets with little luck, but easily found them on Amazon! I hear that many Asian markets do in fact carry them, so you may find them locally!

In all honesty I was cautiously optimistic when creating this recipe, for fear of once again being super disappointed by lofty internet food magic claims. Some things just seem too good to be true. But this recipe is not. It is all true and delicious and amazing!

I made sure to include a picture of the inside of one of these fillets so you could see just how convincing it looks. These things look, feel, and taste like fried fish!

Now i’m not swearing this recipe will blow your mind, but it did mine. Suffice to say that banana blossoms are now a staple in my pantry, and fish fry Friday is back in action in our house!

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Ingredients:

• 2 cans of banana blossoms in brine

• 1 and 1/2 cup all purpose white flour

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon old bay

• 2 teaspoons dulse flakes

• 3 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 can of cold beer, any beer is fine as long as it’s not a dark, thick beer

• Oil for frying (I used peanut)

Vegan Tartar Sauce:

• 1/2 cup vegan mayo

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

• 2 - 3 tablespoons diced dill pickles

• 1 teaspoon sugar

• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard

• salt and pepper to taste

• optional: 1 - 2 teaspoons capers

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Instructions:

1. Drain cans of banana blossoms and carefully remove the blossoms, laying them out on a paper towel to remove some liquid. They can easily fall apart so be careful. I found that only a few blossoms in each can were fully in tact. I simply took all of the loose leaves from each can and stacked them back together to resemble full blossoms. I have only been able to find one brand of blossoms on Amazon. I am uncertain if this is an issue with all canned banana blossoms, but stacking the leaves back together worked just fine for me.

2. Transfer the blossoms to a shallow baking dish and sprinkle with the 2 teaspoons of dulce flakes and a dash of salt.

3. For the batter, whisk together the flour, baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, old bay, and the entire can of cold beer in a medium sized bowl. The batter will be thick.

4. To make the tartar sauce, whisk all of the ingredients together in a medium sized bowl and set aside.

5. Heat a deep skillet with a few inches of oil over medium/ high heat.

6. While the oil is heating, begin carefully dipping the blossoms into the batter. For any blossoms that you had to reassemble, place them into the batter, and using a spoon, cover the top in batter. This will help keep the blossom in tact vs attempting to dip them. Carefully transfer the blossoms to the hot oil. TIP: if you are not sure if the oil is hot enough, place a chopstick into the oil, if tiny bubbles form around the chopstick, the oil is ready!

7. Fry each blossom for a minute or two on each side, or until they are golden brown. If they seem to be browning too quickly, reduce your heat a bit. Transfer the finished blossoms to a wire cooling rack that has been placed on top of a paper towel lined cookie sheet.

8. Serve finished banana blossoms with a few lemon wedges, homemade tarter sauce, french fries, or malt vinegar.

serves 4