How To Make Dungeness Crab Cakes

Winter in Northern California means Dungeness Crab season and these delicious crab cakes are a great way to take advantage of the bounty. We like crab cakes without a lot of fillers such as bread or cracker crumbs, just the pure taste of crab with a few herbs. This Tarragon Cream Sauce is the perfect accompaniment to serve them with.

This recipe is naturally gluten free.

Watch A Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making Dungeness Crab Cakes:

https://youtu.be/07hD-udyPWA

Ingredients For Dungeness Crab Cakes:

• 3 Tablespoons Mayonnaise
• 1 Tablespoon Sour Cream
• 1/2 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
• 1/2 of an Egg
• 1 Green Onion, chopped very fine
• 1 Teaspoon thyme leaves, chopped
• Pinch of Cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
• Meat of 1 Dungeness Crab

Mayonnaise

We’ll start with measuring the mayonnaise into a medium mixing bowl. You can use light or regular mayonnaise for this.

Sour Cream

Next we put in the sour cream, adding some creamy dairy texture to our crab cakes.

Dijon Mustard

Now we’ll add the Dijon mustard. A little bit of Dijon is a great accompaniment to the flavor of our crab.

Egg

Next we add the egg. You can double this recipe and use a whole egg. We just want to make four crab cakes so we are using half an egg. How do you get half an egg? We’ll put the egg in a bowl and beat it thoroughly. Then we can pour half of it or so into our batter. You don’t need to be exact with this. You just want at least half the egg.

Green Onion

We chop up a small green onion into really small pieces. You want them chopped fine so they aren’t intrusive in the final crab cakes.

Thyme

Next we add the thyme. We take the leaves off the stems and then chop them a little to make them even smaller.

Pinch Of Cayenne

We’ll add just a pinch of cayenne to perk it up a little.

Worcestershire Sauce

Now we’ll add our Worcestershire sauce. A little bit of this complements crab really well.

Mix Well

We’ll whisk this all thoroughly and we’ll have our crab cake batter.

Add the Crab

Now we fold in the crab making sure it all gets coated with our batter. You’ll want to crumble the crab into small shreds so the cakes hold together better.

Oiled Muffin Tin

We’ll be cooking these in a greased muffin tin for a perfect size. You can use a mini muffin tin to make appetizer size, you’ll probably want to reduce the cooking time if you do.

Bake At 400°

Now we bake them at 400° for 25 minutes. The time will be a little less if you are using a mini muffin pan. We check it and turn the pan after 15 minutes. It is still pretty liquidy.

Broil 1 Minute

You can apply the toothpick test to see if it is cooked in the middle. You can also tell by touch. They should be slightly firm when you press on them. Once they are cooked we will turn on the broiler and broil them for one minute just to get a little color on top.

Removing Them From The Pan

Before trying to get our crab cakes out of the pan we will let them cool a bit. Then we’ll run a knife around the outsides of each one just to increase the chances they’ll pop out okay. Having done everything we can to ensure success we get to the moment of truth. We’ll turn the pan over and cross our fingers they come out whole.

Plate and Serve

Now we’ll just put two crab cakes on each plate. We are serving these with a delicious Tarragon Cream Sauce. You can see the recipe for that.

Here are some other crab recipes to make with fresh dungeness crab.

• Thai Coconut Curry Crab
• Yellow Curry Crab
• Crab Stuffed Mushrooms
• Seafood Chowder With Fresh Dungeness Crab
• Dungeness Crab Cakes
• Gumbo With Fresh Dungeness Crab

We have videos about cooking and picking crab that might be helpful if you are new to it.

• Picking Dungeness Crab
• Cleaning and Steaming Live Dungeness Crab

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