Kickin’ Crab Cakes

Appetizers are my jam! Ironically, jam used to be my appetizer. Okay… sometimes it still is. But I decided that as much as I love entertaining, I should probably step up my game in the appetizer area. After all it’s the nibbles, bites, finger foods, apps that make the food portion of the party exciting. So I decided to create a hype with Kickin’ Crab Cakes at one of our parties. And not only were they delicious and easy to make, but they received rave reviews from our guests! I’d highly suggest making them for your next gathering!

Kickin' Crab Cake appetizer

So one night hubby and I had 4 other couples joining us for no other reason than the kids were at Grandma and Grandpa’s for the weekend and we wanted some adult time. What better way to get together with all the friends you’ve been missing than to throw a party and invite them all at once?! Since I had the afternoon to myself and could spend some time in the kitchen I thought I’d give some new recipes a whirl. I whipped up stuff I would normally be tentative of, but these were our good friends that I’m sure would graciously forgive any bad cooking. And if not, we’d just serve more drinks.

So as I was looking up appetizer recipes, I stumbled across one for crab cakes. My husband loves crab cakes. So I thought, why not? Well… the recipe I found should have made it a why not. It looked complicated and used ingredients that I would probably never use again. And you know me. I love simple. So the search continued for crab cake recipes. Finally I decided I would take the best sounding stuff from a couple different recipes and create my own.

Holy smokes! They were delicious! I mean really good. And simple.

You probably have most of the ingredients in your spice cabinet already. Use what you’ve got, right? Mix everything together and then make patties.

The most time consuming part was browning the crab cakes. I used three pans that held 3-4 crab cakes each. You need to be present to check and turn the cakes. No multi-tasking on this one. However, one batch (which makes 15 palm-sized cakes) still only took 10 minutes at the stove.

Crab cakes in skillet

If I’m making these delicious little seafood patties for an appetizer, I will often return the browned crab cakes to the parchment lined baking sheet and keep them warm in the oven until guests arrive.

As far as the kickin’ sauce… I generally serve it separately in case there is someone who doesn’t want to turn up the heat. The crab cakes would also be delicious served with a mango or pineapple salsa as a mild garnish and would be perfect for a Hawaiian or tropical dish.

Needless to say, not only did I impress our guests with this recipe, but myself as well! And I think you will love it too!

 

Kickin' Crab Cakes

Prep Time:15 minutes
Cook Time:20 minutes
Total Time:35 minutes
Yields: 7

Ingredients

  • 1.5 pounds crab meat, deshelled
  • 16 soda crackers, finely crumbled
  • 1 egg
  • 1 Tbsp chives, finely chopped
  • 1 cup mayonnaise, divided
  • 1 pinch dill weed
  • Zest of one lemon or 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Instructions

CRAB CAKES

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  • In a large bowl, combine the crab, crackers, 1 tsp of mayonnaise, chives, mustard, lemon zest and egg. Mix together well.
  • Form palm-sized cakes (about 3" in diameter). Place cakes on a baking tray covered with parchment paper.
  • In a pan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Cook the crab cakes in batches, about 2 minutes on each side. Put cooked crab cakes back on the baking tray.
  • Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

SPICY MAYO

  • Using the remaining mayonnaise, add several drops of hot sauce or sriracha sauce.
  • Stir well. Add more hot sauce or sriracha until desired heat level is achieved.
  • Garnish crab cakes with a light sprinkling of dill weed and a dollop of spicy mayo.

Happy eating, friends!

Alisha

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