Preview: Fresh Crab Cakes

by Curtis W in Rouxbe Recipes

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This crowd pleasing appetizer is served with a simple dill dressing.

  • Total Time: 50 mins
  • Active Time: 40 mins

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Step 1: Preparing the Dressing

Preparing the Dressing

Mix the mayonnaise, dill, salt, pepper and lemon juice together. Set aside.

  • 1/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 tbsp fresh dill
  • 1/8 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/8 tsp white pepper
  • 1 tsp fresh lemon juice

Step 2: Making the Crab Cakes

Making the Crab Cakes

To start the crab cakes, pre-heat the oven to 325° degrees Fahrenheit.

Cut off the end of the pepper and remove the ribs/seeds. Cut into brunoise and finely dice the chives.

Place the crab meat into a medium bowl and break it up. Make sure to check for and remove any pieces of shell. Add the breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, chives, red pepper, salt, pepper and mix well.

Divide the mixture up into equal portions and form into little cakes.
Make sure to squeeze them a bit so they don’t fall apart during cooking.

These cakes can be made a few hours in advance of cooking them. Cover and store in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook them.

  • 4 tbsp red bell pepper
  • 4 tbsp fresh chives
  • 10 oz fresh crab meat
  • 1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 1/4 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Step 3: Finishing the Crab Cakes

Finishing the Crab Cakes

When you are ready to cook the crab cakes, sprinkle the breadcrumbs onto a plate. Roll each cake in the breadcrumbs to coat.

Heat a non-stick fry pan over high heat and add the clarified butter. Heat until it just begins to smoke.

Add the crab cakes and then turn the heat down to medium. Let cook until golden brown on the one side. Meanwhile, spray a baking tray with non-stick spray and set aside. Once the bottom of the crab cakes are golden, gently flip and transfer to the baking tray. Place the crab cakes into the oven for about 10 to 12 minutes to finish cooking.

Once ready, serve immediately with a dollop of dill dressing and garnish with a small sprig of fresh dill and radish sprouts. These delicate crab cakes are fantastic and can be served either as a light lunch or as an appetizer.

  • 1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs (for coating)
  • 3 tbsp clarified butter

Notes

For a little twist you could also add shrimp to this recipe. Also, for a little bit of kick you can add either crushed chili's or minced jalapeño.

Heidi S

Crab Cakes

I haven't made this recipe yet, but it seems to be missing some information -- what temperature do you set your oven at when baking them off? Is it a medium oven 350ish? or a hot oven 400+?

Dawn T
Rouxbe Staff

Step 2 - Preheat Oven to 325° degrees Fahrenheit

Print/view recipe (which is the print icon), or "Step Recipe" to the right of Step 2 "Making the Crab Cakes, both say to Preheat oven to 325° F.

Good luck! These are delicious.

Liz F

Bread crumbs?

Do you have any recommendations for bread crumbs? What type of bread did you use? I've never used bread crumbs. Thanks for any assistance!

Dawn T
Rouxbe Staff

Dried Bread Crumbs

The best breadcrumbs to use for this recipe are dried, which also happen to be the easiest to find. Any Italian Deli and most Grocery stores will sell them. Or you could make your own.

Joe G

Amazingly great and super simple

Nice work Curtis. Thanks for sharing. Always wondered how these were made. P

Greg B

Bread crumbs

Not sure if it would work for this recipe, but I do a similar version with panko. Great texture.

I'm going to try this recipe as is, though!

Cheyanne L

Easy recipe with great results

The cakes were great, boyfriend loved them. And with the plating tips they look like they took so much more effort and time than they did ;)

Mary-anne D

needs something big time

not impressed, we make awesome dungeness crabcakes with togarashi kaffir etc, on a bed of chipotle hollandaise. Sorry this is boring.

Joe G
Rouxbe Staff

To each is own

Anyone else tried these? If so, what did you think? I personally loved them.

Mary-anne D

crab cakes

I agree that you don't need crab legs or claw meat, we just shell out the fresh Dungeness and use the body meat.

If you try a little togarashi and kaffir lime leaf you will be surprised at how it takes these up a few noches. We place in forms and fry in grapeseed oil or rice bran oil or ghee.

Chipotle Hollandaise is amazing, but we are into complex subtle flavours all in balance.

Our recipe is not unlike yours just has a little tist with bai magroot and togarashi.

Bon Appetite

Dee F

Crab cakes are great.

I have made these a few times and everyone really likes them.
I like the simplicity of the crab but the chipotle sauce sounds nice.

Clumsychef W

Not bad...

My husband loved them but I felt something was missing. Maybe I should try spicing it up. Also - active time was more like 40 minutes, not 20.

Jukka P

Nice recipe - great results

The crab cakes turned out perfect - my wife loved them. Very tasty and great consistency. Will defenitely do this recipe again.

The drill down info on clarified butter was good as I had never done that before.

Cynthia K

crabmeat

Never have made anything with crab meat. How do I purchase it. Can I buy packaged or do i buy whole crab?

Joe G
Rouxbe Staff

Buying Crab

I would suggest buying your crab meat already shelled. Any fish store should carry fresh crab meat. It typically does not come packaged, rather sold at the fish market by weight. Just ask for enough for the recipe. Keep in mind that some fish stores sell whole crab leg meat at a premium price (very expensive). You really don't care if the meat is broken up a bit as you are going to break it up anyway, so no need for this premium product.

Tip: I prefer to buy fresh fish products on Wednesday's to Saturday's. Monday's in most fish stores is left-over day (not always). Typically, the fresh stuff comes into most stores on Tuesdays.

Jeri S

Breadcrumbs?

I am on a low carb diet for diabetes, can the sprouted wheat bread be substituted for the bread crumbs? Any other suggestions??

Tony M
Rouxbe Staff

Fresh Crumbs

You can make breadcrumbs with any bread. Simply break it up and pulse it in the food processor, fresh, until semi-coarse. Let them dry a bit before using, or dry completely and store. Sprouted wheat breadcrumbs actually sound quite nice.

Tash & andrew G

A Hume Hit!

The Hume's hosted Sunday dinner and served these as our starters - AMAZING!

John B

Very tasty

I've just tried these for the second time and they're absolutely gorgeous. One thing I have to ask is how do you make them hold together a bit better because although I've stopped them falling apart when shallow frying they are still very fragile. I've tried using less mayonnaise but they still feel very fragile.

Thanks,

John

Tony M
Rouxbe Staff

Hold your cakes

The very best way to keep them together is to rest them in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, even longer, well pressed and covered. The longer the crumbs soak the cake's moisture, the better they hold. Also, make sure your knife cuts are fine as large cuts will make the cake more crumbly. Here's a great example of doing little things well and letting time and patience do what it's supposed to do. The ideal cake is supposed to feel fragile, but stays together when cooked.

John B

Thanks

Hi Tony and thanks very much for the advice. I shall be making them again on the weekend and let you know how I get on. Once again thanks for the help and an amazing site.

Liz D

Loved these!

I took Mary-anne's idea and together with my most useful kitchen tool, Google, improvised a togarashi seasoning out of sambal oelek, minced garlic, fresh ginger, black seasame seeds and a drop or two of orange oil. A little bite of divinity!

Thanks for the recipe - it's a keeper!

Tuyen L

After freezing crab cakes.

After I have freeze my crab cake, do I have to thaw it first, or can I start frying right after I take it out from the freezer?

Tuyen L

After freezing crab cakes.

After I have freeze my crab cake, do I have to thaw it first, or can I start frying right after I take it out from the freezer?

Kimberley S
Rouxbe Staff

RE: Frying Frozen Crab Cakes

Always thaw food thoroughly before pan frying. Make sure to thaw the food in the refrigerator. You may want to review the lesson on How to Pan Fry - we talk about why not to fry frozen foods. Cheers!

Tuyen L

Frying frozen crab cakes

Ok thank you Kimberley.

Patricia A

CRAB CAKES

THANK YOU CURTIS MY PROBLEM WITH WEBSITE IS SOLVED THANK YOU PAT AMORE

Rob S

Almost delicious

I found the dill dressing to be a little too strong for my tastes, so I'll have to tone it down a bit next time, but the crab cakes were delicate and tasty. I also didn't have any kaiware sprouts, so I just used dill for garnish. Since I didn't have any on hand, I made the mayonnaise myself using Rouxbe's mayonnaise recipe.

Here's a picture of how they came out!
http://gallery.me.com/rshemeley#100100/IMG_0011

Dawn T
Rouxbe Staff

RE: Crab Cake Pictures

Top notch Rob. Your pictures of the crab cakes look very good. Also, I have to admit that I did look at your other food photos as well...I "love" the pizza shot. Cheers!

Rob S

RE: Crab Cake Pictures

Thank you so much for the compliment! It means a lot to me. :) I'm still very much a beginner, but thanks to Rouxbe I've made great progress.

That pizza was every bit as delicious as it looked! :D The sauce was the Rouxbe tomato sauce recipe. It was perfect.

To keep this post on topic, I'll also add that the homemade mayo seemed to hold the crab cakes together better than I expected considering I didn't break up the crab or dice the pepper quite as small as I wanted.

Chris T

Crab Cakes

This is almost identical to the way I make my crab cakes. However, being from Maryland, you *must* add Old Bay seasoning, and even a bit of hot sauce for a slight 'kick' :)

Ruben V

cooked crab meat

Hi we have been doing some trials of these crab cakes. We are buying the fresh crab. First we take the meat of and cook it on a pan. Then we follow your recipe. Are we cooking the crab properlly? Thanks for your advice.

Dawn T
Rouxbe Staff

RE: Cooked Crab Meat

Sorry not quite sure of the question. Are you saying that you are starting with raw crab and then removing the meat from the shells and then cooking it in a pan? If so, I would say to cook the crab in the shell and then remove it afterwards. Cheers!

Fredi T

CRAB CAKES

I made this recipe last night substituting Panko breadcrumbs. It
was amazing served with Garlic butter sauce....YUMMY! Thanks
for the great recipe..

Patricia A

Crab Cakes

I loved this recipe. I left out the dill and it added more garlic. It was great and my 5 and 8 year olds loved them.

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