Air Fryer Thai Fishcakes

Let’s make delicious homemade Thai fishcakes in the air fryer. Loaded with just cooked air fryer flaky fish, mashed potatoes, Thai seasoning, and a few little extras.

You will love how tasty these Thai fishcakes are and how easy they are to prep, and best of all, how we freeze the leftovers.  

This air fryer Thai fishcake recipe was originally shared with you back in 2015. We have since updated air fryers and created an even better recipe for you.

My Love For Air Fryer Breaded Foods

If you have been a regular at Recipe This for a while, then you will know that I love breading stuff and then air frying it. With the help of Chef Dom, I have shown you so many different air fryer breaded foods.

From air fryer schnitzel to air fryer cordon bleu to air fryer KFC chicken to a Zinger burger to air fryer calamari rings, it’s a firm favourite of ours.

That is because the air fryer lends itself to making breaded food crispy, just without the deep fried calories.

But beyond the obvious chicken and appetisers, the air fryer is also fantastic for breading fish.

This summer we are on a mission to show you even more ideas and along with our air fryer fish and chips and homemade fish fingers we felt that we must update our fishcake recipes.

Thai Fishcakes

Believe it or not, our Thai fishcakes originally started by accident. A nice, tasty accident of course.

It was back in 2015 and I was putting together loads of air fryer recipes to launch Recipe This.

I decided to get my old family cookbook out and make my grandad’s homemade fishcakes in the air fryer. But I made WAY too much fish mix and it was enough to feed the whole of our local village.

So, I halved the flaked fish and made one batch of ordinary fishcakes (not that I should call my Grandad’s fishcakes ordinary, but you get the idea) and the bowl became Thai fishcakes.

This is me separating the bowls for another round of fishcakes:

I had simply used some Thai seasoning and OMG these fishcakes were out of this world delicious. I now make them whenever I have spare fish and spare breadcrumbs.

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What Are Thai Fishcakes Made Of?

Traditionally fishcakes are very similar to one another. It usually involves 50% fish, 50% cooked mashed potatoes and maybe some butter. Add loads of seasoning and you have the centre of a fishcake patty.

Then cover in flour, egg wash and breadcrumbs and you have a classic fishcake, like I have shown you in our classic fishcakes recipe.

You can then mix and match such as just using salmon, tuna, or crab for salmon fishcakes, tuna fishcakes or crab fishcakes.

Thai fishcakes are made of the same, just with added Thai ingredients such as:

• Coriander
• Sweet Paprika
• Thai 7 Spice

These three ingredients make the most flavoursome Thai fishcakes you will ever try. You can also use these ingredients for other things. For example, I use them in my soup maker lentil soup and its so addictive.

Do You Call Them Thai Fish Cakes?

Now one thing that I find rather interesting is the fact that many refer to them as thai fish cakes not fishcakes.

Look at the packaging on M&S food and many other places and it’s called fishcakes, yet go to Google, and every result is a 2 word.

Do tell me in the comments if you are fish cake or fishcakes.

How Do You Cook Frozen Thai Fishcakes?

Simply follow our air fryer frozen fishcakes recipe and the temp will work the same for other types. You can also make our batch of Thailand fishcakes and then freeze them for later to then cook from frozen at a later date.

Thai Fish Cakes With Potato

Thai potato fish cakes are the best way to go if you want the best Thai fish cakes. This is because the potatoes are the perfect binder and stop the fishcakes from falling apart once cooked.

You use half potato and half cooked fish and mush them together in a bowl to form Thai fish patties.

However, if you follow Paleo you can swap white potatoes for sweet potatoes.

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Thai Fish Cake Recipe Ingredients

Fish – To make Thai fish cakes I recommend using a mix of any boneless fish that you can mash easily once cooked. We went with some salmon, cod and pollock. Though if you are on a budget, I recommend doing just pollock and haddock.

Potatoes – You can use the air fryer to make your mash as we made our air fryer baby potatoes and then mashed them. Or use up leftover mash, or even make our instant pot no drain mash.

Breading – You will need a breading production line (more on this below) with a beaten egg bowl, a breadcrumbs bowl, and a flour bowl.

Thai – Then to make your fishcakes Thai you will also want sweet paprika, coriander leaf and Thai 7 spice to add to your fish and potatoes.

Seasoning – I also recommend adding extra seasoning to your breadcrumbs bowl and your flour bowl. This adds extra flavour and otherwise this recipe for air fryer fish patties can be rather bland. I recommend parsley for your flour and then dill, parsley, and basil for your breadcrumbs. Then extra seasoning for your patties before breading of salt, pepper, coriander, parsley, and thyme.

Optional – Also because you are making Thai style fish cakes you can swap out the basil and dill and thyme for extra 7 Thai seasoning.

Then for the kitchen gadgets that we have used in this Thai fish cake recipe it has just been our Cosori air fryer. We have this one and its wonderful for many types of air fryer recipes.

Plus, we recommend you head over to our air fryer recipes category as we have more than 500 tried and tested air fryer recipes and have been air frying for 10 years.

Breading Fishcakes For The Air Fryer

This process for breading fishcakes for the air fryer is the same for all our breaded fish and learn this system and then you can rinse and repeat with other recipes.

Also note, you can do batches of different recipes at the same time. For example, we did air fryer fish fingers, air fryer fish nuggets and a batch of air fryer fish and chips.

You start with three bowls:

• 1 for egg wash
• 1 for flour
• 1 for breadcrumbs

The number #1 chef tip is to use one hand for the flour and egg and then the other hand for the breadcrumbs. That way you won’t have to wash your hands inbetween or get eggy hands on the breaded fishcakes.

The number #2 chef tip is to have a clean chopping board ready for placing the breaded food on once you have breaded it.

The number #3 chef tip is to have the bowls next to each other in the right order. I.e. flour first, then egg, then breadcrumbs.

The number #4 chef tip is to freeze leftover bread as breadcrumbs and then you can pour some into a bowl whenever you want to bread food.

The number #5 chef tip is to flavour the breadcrumbs and flour depending on what you are breading. For example, swap these flavours for our KFC spice blend and make our air fryer KFC chicken.

Here are our bowls with seasoning ready for making this breaded fishcake recipe:

Then once you have mixed the seasoning in your bowls, you’re ready for breading and then air frying.

How To Air Fry Thai Fishcakes?

• Drain. Place your fish in a bowl and allow it to sit there for an hour. This will help with any excess liquid and then you will have a less wet fish.
• Air Fry. Next, place your fish on a chopping board, season and then load into the air fryer. Cook for 8 minutes at 180c/360f to cook the fish. Then allow it to cool.
• Batch 2. When the fish is out of the air fryer, load baby potatoes into a bowl and toss in a little extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Mix with your hands. Load them into the air fryer and cook for 17 minutes at 180c/360f. Then remove and allow to cool.
• Bowls. Whilst the fish and potatoes are cooling, set up your production line. With one bowl for flour, one bowl for eggs and one bowl for breadcrumbs. Then add seasoning to flour and breadcrumb bowls and beat your eggs. I also recommend adding in some lemon juice to your eggs.
• Prep. Mash the potatoes with some butter and salt and pepper. Then use a fork to flake the fish and load both into a bowl. Add the rest of the seasonings and a little more butter. Mix with your hands into fish patties.
• Bread. Next load the Thai fishcake patties into the flour, then the egg and then using your other dry hand into the breadcrumbs.
• Cook. Air fry the Thai fish cakes for 10 minutes at 180c/360f before serving.

And I am sure you can see now how easy it is cooking Thai fishcakes in air fryer and how you can be doing the same.

Can You Freeze Thai Fishcakes?

Yes, you can. But I do something different. I find myself often with too much Thai fishcake mix leftover and never any breadcrumbs left.

I freeze the patties bag and then I can skip many of the cooking steps next time and just set up a production line and cook my fishcakes.

This is my spare bag of Thai fishcake mix ready for the freezer:

More Air Fryer Fish Ideas

• Air Fryer Whole Fish
• Air Fryer Filet O Fish
• Air Fryer Fish Nuggets
• Air Fryer Cod

Your recipe for Thai fish cakes in air fryer recipe is below, note you can print it out with or without photos, adjust servings, or click between metric and imperial depending on where you are in the world.

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