Easy Recipe For Crab Cakes (Full Guide)

Introduction

Today, I’m gonna share with you my favourite and easy recipe for crab cakes, with a delicious remoulade sauce and an apple slaw.

This is a fantastic and so easy recipe to make for a Sunday night dinner when you have a little bit of extra time on your hands.

I promise, none of this recipe is hard.

But it does take a little bit of prep.

But not to worry, the results are well worth the effort.

Let me show you how to make it.

Easy Recipe For Crab Cakes (All Steps)

So, we first need to prepare our crab cakes, because they do need to set up in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.

So, in a large bowl, you’re gonna add two tablespoons of store-bought mayonnaise, one egg, two teaspoons of Dijon mustard, one-and-a-half teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce, a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice, and a quarter teaspoon of your favourite hot sauce.

Then you can whisk that all up until it’s nice and combined.

And then to that, we’re also gonna add one teaspoon of diced jalapeno.

Now if you don’t like things too spicy, you might just wanna pull that back to a half a teaspoon.

I go for the full teaspoon, because I do like a little bit of kick in my crab cakes, but it’s up to you.

And then you’re also gonna add a tablespoon of freshly snipped chives.

So now all we have to do is add the crab.

So, we’re gonna use eight ounces of crab meat.

Now you could use lump crab meat, you could use fancy crab meat, which is a little bit finer in texture.

I like the fancy for that very reason, because I find it’ll give you a much more delicate crab cake.

But if all you can find is the lump crab meat, that’s fine, too.

And then to that, we’re also gonna add a half a cup of panko bread crumbs.

Now you could use regular bread crumbs if that’s all you could find.

But I really like the panko, because I think it gives it a really nice crunch.

And then you can just stir that all up until everything is combined.

So, at this stage, we’re then gonna take a quarter cup measuring cup to parcel out the crab cake mixture.

That way, you’ll be assured that all of your crab cakes are the same size, which means they’ll all cook up at the same rate.

So, you can go ahead and make four crab cakes, just patting them down, and moulding them, into the shape of a little cake.

And then you can put that aside.

And then the final step is to just press them through some more panko bread crumbs so that they have a nice crunchy exterior.

You want to make sure you cover it on all sides,

so front and back and the side.

And then you’re gonna refrigerate this for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, we can create our remoulade sauce.

So, this is a really great sauce that pairs beautifully with crab cakes.

It’s a little bit sweet, a little bit savoury.

The origin of this sauce if French, but I know that it’s very popular in southern states like Louisiana, or you may also see it in places like Maryland across the United States.

So, here’s how easy it is to put together.

So, in a small bowl, you’re going to add a quarter cup of mayonnaise, one-and-a-half teaspoons of whole grain mustard, quarter teaspoon of paprika, a teaspoon of prepared horseradish.

And then here’s the little secret ingredient, one teaspoon of pickle juice.

Now sometimes people will actually add chopped pickles, and you could do that as well, but the pickle juice will just give it a really nice sweetness in the background that’s quite a nice flavour.

Now, if you don’t have pickles laying around, don’t go out and buy a whole jar of pickles just for a teaspoon of the pickle juice.

You could use just a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice.

That would work, too.

Then you’re just gonna whisk that all up

until it’s nice and smooth and combined.

And then you can cover this and pop it in your fridge until you’re ready to serve.

Okay, so the final component to this meal is going to be our apple slaw.

This is a really great refreshing taste that pairs so well with the crab cakes and the sauce.

And it’s super simple to do.

So first we’re gonna prepare the dressing, which is just two tablespoons of sour cream.

Now if you have problems finding sour cream, I know that can be difficult to find outside of the US, you could also use plain Greek yogurt with some creme fraiche would work, too.

And to that, you’re going to add one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, and you’re gonna whisk the two together until it’s smooth.

You can set your dressing aside.

And then we are going to prepare our apple matchsticks.

Now I recently went and bought a mandolin.

I have been afraid of these gadgets for years.

But I finally bit the bullet because I really wanted beautifully sliced matchsticks.

I find a model that, you know what?

It works great in a pinch, it’s $19.

A little bit of it is plastic, but I figured, I wasn’t gonna really invest a lot of money in something I was just going to try.

But I’m here to say I’m actually pretty impressed with it.

So, if you wanna try your hand at a mandolin.

It’s a great starter one, if you just wanted to try it.

And you can do other things with it, too.

So, for our slaw, we are going to use one Granny Smith apple.

And I actually leave the skin on, because it adds a beautiful colour to it, and it also will give you one more texture.

So, taking your apple upright, you’re just gonna slice off the cheeks of the apple, getting four good slices.

And it’ll leave you with a square core.

And then taking the flat side down, you’re gonna put it in the mandolin.

And I actually have the blade that’s gonna make matchsticks.

And you’re just gonna run it up and back.

And at first, it’s gonna look like, it’s not actually doing anything.

But if you look below, you’ll see you’ll start to have all these beautiful little apple sticks appearing.

So, you wanna do that with all slices of the apple.

And it will provide enough little matchsticks to feed two people.

If you don’t have a mandolin, you certainly can make this recipe by just slicing up apples.

That would work, too.

But if you want it to look like this, you might just wanna try your hand at a mandolin.

We’re gonna collect our apples, we’re gonna pop them in the bowl with our dressing, give it a toss.

And then the final step is just to add a little sprinkle of poppy seeds on top of that.

And you’ll see you have a beautiful salad on your hands.

So, we have all of our components ready to go.

It is time to fry up the crab cakes.

Now, with this, there’s two ways to go.

You can either put it in a shallow skillet with some cooking oil, and fry them on each side until crispy.

Or what I recently tried is an air fryer.

And I have to say, I am pretty impressed with these air fryers.

So, we’re gonna set the air fryer to 360.

And you don’t even have to preheat it, we’re just going to open the little basket, put our crab cakes in.

You wanna make sure that they don’t touch so that they don’t stick.

But you don’t have to put any oil in it.

Then you just slide them into the fryer and then set the timer.

I’m gonna start at 15 minutes to begin, and then check on it.

So that’s the nice thing.

While it’s frying, if at 15 minutes they look done to you, you could just take it out.

Or if you want them extra crispy, you can go another three minutes for 18 minutes.

And once you pull them out, you’ll see they’re nice and crispy and no oil was used whatsoever, which also makes it really easy to clean up, because you don’t have to get rid of all that oil.

And then we are going to put them on a plate.

We are going to dollop with a little bit of our sauce, and then top with some freshly snipped chives.

And then, in the centre, we are going to pile high our beautiful apple slaw.

And you will see, you will have a delicious little dinner there waiting for you.

This may not look like a lot of food, but I tell ya’, they’re pretty filling.

It’s great for a starter.

Or you could also use it for dinner for two.

And there you have it, my favourite and easy recipe for crab cakes.

I hope you guys give this one a try.

And let me know what you think.

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