Who can deny the beauty of crab cakes? They offer a beautiful combination of sweet delicate crab meat and herbal notes from seasonings, plus a crisp exterior that finishes the whole thing perfectly. This combo is both humble and exquisite – a treat to come back to time and time again.
Of course, crab cakes are rarely a meal on their own. They’re most often served with at least one side. The right side balances the texture and flavor of your crab cakes, giving you an even more filling and tasty meal.
Working out what to serve with crab cakes isn’t all that difficult either. Crab is naturally rich and crab cakes are often fried, so you’re typically looking for a light and refreshing side to balance things out.
Popular sides for crab cakes include coleslaw, asparagus, roasted veggies, and sometimes a cucumber salad, along with some carb-focused sides like a lemon rice pilaf or mac and cheese. The carby sides help balance your meal when you’re serving dense crab cakes, ones that are packed with crab and use few fillers.
What To Serve With Crab Cakes (13 Sides To Try)
Coleslaw
Coleslaw is one of the most traditional sides for crab cakes. It’s perfect too, as you get a tangy contrasting flavor and plenty of crunch. This crunchiness also helps to make your meal lighter and less intense.
You can also experiment with the flavors. For example, adding a little cayenne pepper makes the coleslaw spicy, while soy sauce gives it an Asian twist instead. Lime cilantro coleslaw is a common variation that doesn’t need many ingredients, making it a fun one to try yourself.
Sriracha Coleslaw
As this name suggests, this Sriracha Coleslaw uses Sriracha as a key ingredient. The sriracha offers a slight spicy kick that makes the coleslaw more exciting than it would normally be.
There are other familiar ingredients in the recipe, including green cabbage, red cabbage, carrots, and green onions, which are essential for the right balance of flavor and texture. Of course, you could use the same dressing with a different combination of ingredients if you wanted.
The recipe includes details about variations you can make, like adding a little honey for sweetness or using celery salt for a slight flavor kick.
Cucumber Salad
If coleslaw doesn’t do the trick, what about cucumber salad instead? This is a refreshing treat, especially if you slice the cucumbers thinly so they absorb plenty of flavors from the other ingredients.
A light vinaigrette-based dressing is common for this type of salad. The dressing makes it refreshing in the same way as coleslaw. You don’t even need many extra ingredients. Red onion and fresh dill work well and are often enough to complete the salad.
That said, there is a creamy version of cucumber salad. This is more comforting and works best when your crab cakes aren’t too rich. You might also use the creamy version if your crab cakes have some spicy notes.
Hungarian Cucumber Salad
It’s hard to get simpler than this Hungarian Cucumber Salad. The salad itself just relies on cucumber, shallots, and dill. Another small set of ingredients is used for the dressing, including vinegar water, sugar, and salt.
Sour cream and Hungarian paprika are used as a topping for the salad. These provide a delicious flavor and texture contrast. If you don’t have Hungarian paprika, no worries, regular paprika will have a similar effect.
Sweet Potato Fries
Think of the fries as a healthier alternative to French fries, giving you a similar texture, plus extra nutrients and flavor. They’re also very easy to make at home. You can make them even healthier by using an air fryer or oven baking them, rather than deep frying them.
To some, the idea of sweet potato fries with crab cakes might seem absurd, as crab cakes are often seen as a refined main. However, they can also be a comforting meal, especially if you rely on high quality ingredients, so why not pair crab cakes with a comforting side?
You could make this pairing even more special by making a delicious dipping sauce. The sauce would work well with both the fries and the crab cakes.
Spicy Spiralized Sweet Potato Fries
These Spicy Spiralized Sweet Potato Fries are much more exciting than regular sweet potato fries. They use a combination of garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, cumin, and smoked paprika to create a complex and delicious flavor profile.
Then there’s the spiralizing trick. This gives you thin and curly sweet potato fries that are much more fun than regular ones. You could even make the fries with a purple sweet potato instead of a regular orange sweet potato.
A Vinaigrette-Dressed Salad
We’ve highlighted two specific salads already – coleslaw and cucumber salad. Now, let’s go broader. Most types of salad will work well alongside crab cakes, particularly if the salad uses a vinaigrette-based dressing.
There are countless types of salads out there, so you’ll never be short of options. You don’t need to stick with lettuce either. Dark leafy greens are a great alternative or you could even try a grain-based salad instead.
Blistered Shishito And Corn Salad
This Blistered Shishito and Corn Salad is a great alternative to traditional salads. It relies on shishito peppers, which are a type of small green pepper that are mild with an almost bitter flavor.
Combining these with corn gives you a sweet-savory salad that looks stunning in the bowl. The peppers are first blistered, which gives them a slight smoky flavor. You could grill the corn if you wanted too, although it’s meant to go into the salad raw.
Asparagus
Asparagus is perfect if you want a simple vegetable-based side. The vegetable offers subtle grassy notes that contrast the richness of your crab cakes. Plus, asparagus and crab are in season at the same time, making them a straightforward pairing.
Another benefit is that asparagus is fast and easy to cook. Roasting, steaming, pan frying, and grilling all work well. Don’t forget about seasoning. Even some parmesan, garlic, and lemon juice is enough to make your asparagus taste simply amazing.
Sautéed Asparagus In Chickpea Miso Butter Sauce
This Sautéed Asparagus in Chickpea Miso Butter Sauce takes a completely different approach to flavoring asparagus. Here, you’re cooking the asparagus in a delicious chickpea miso butter sauce, which keeps it moist and makes it taste incredible.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to make your own chickpea miso for the recipe. The recipe creator highlights a helpful brand that will give you the desired flavor. Or, you can simply stick with regular miso.
The combination of asparagus and miso is stunning. You end up with a delicious side that works with crab cakes and plenty of other mains.
Brown Rice With Tomatoes
If you don’t mind carbs with your crab cakes, try preparing a simple brown rice and tomato dish. You could add in some extra flavor as well, like using onions, garlic, and spices. The tomatoes are exceptional, as they add a vibrant flavor to your meal, acting as a perfect contrast to the crab cakes.
This particular side is best when your crab cakes are packed with crab, binder, seasonings, and little else. If your recipe relies on breadcrumbs and other fillers, then you won’t really need carbs in your side dish.
Easy Vegan Spanish Rice
This Easy Vegan Spanish Rice could be excellent as a side dish or a light meal in its own right. It’s made with a host of interesting ingredients, including brown rice, fire-roasted tomatoes, onion, minced garlic, smoked paprika, oregano, and more.
Roasting the tomatoes creates a delicious rich flavor, which is complemented by tomato paste and a wide collection of seasonings. It’s easy to see how this ends up being a fantastically flavorful dish.
Roasted Veggies
Roasting is one of the easiest ways to cook vegetables, which is perfect when you’re short on time. As the vegetables cook, their sugars start to caramelize, creating deeper and richer flavors.
Root vegetables are the classic choice here, including potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and some more unusual ones. But, plenty of other vegetables work too, including tomatoes, zucchini, and bell peppers. These lighter vegetables often add fresh flavors and a bit of zing to your meal.
Roasted Zucchini And Bell Peppers
If you’re stuck for ideas, why not try this Roasted Zucchini and Bell Peppers recipe? Zucchini and bell peppers are the base ingredients, but there are a few extras including dried herbs, fresh basil, garlic powder, and goat cheese.
The goat cheese isn’t essential. You could skip it or use a dairy free alternative if you wish. However, it provides an interesting flavor hit that makes the meal so much better.
This is also a great recipe for beginners, as it offers detailed instructions and images that show you how to make the perfect roast veggies.
Spinach Salad
Instead of using lettuce as the base for your salad, why not try a leafy green like spinach instead? You can do so using the same types of salad dressing and mix-ins or experiment with brand new combinations.
Spinach leaves, blue cheese, and walnuts, for example, combine wonderfully to create a healthy flavorful salad. Or, you could try a version that adds fresh fruit into the mix.
The benefits are similar to a regular salad, as you get a vibrant contrasting flavor and texture. Dark leafy greens are also packed with nutrients, making them a great choice for health.
Simple Lemon Spinach Arugula Salad
What do you think of this Simple Lemon Spinach Arugula Salad? Baby spinach and arugula are the main greens here, complemented by avocado, slivered almonds, and some parmesan.
The lemon aspect comes from a lemon and olive oil dressing. This is a great way to make the salad more vibrant without many extra ingredients.
If you don’t have spinach, this salad could easily be made using other greens. Even lettuce would work well with the flavors at play.
Poached Egg
A poached egg is a stunning way to make your crab cakes even more decadent. The idea works best if you serve the poached egg on top of your crab cake, perhaps with a little hollandaise sauce.
Combining ingredients like this gives you an over-the-top version of eggs benedict, one that’s easy to enjoy and impossible to forget. If you cook the eggs just right, you should get warm liquid egg yolk flowing all over your freshly made crab cake. What could be better?
Asparagus And Crab Cake Benedict
If you’re an eggs benedict fan, you’ll adore this Asparagus and Crab Cake Benedict. The dish starts with an English muffin, then a rich crab cake, blanched asparagus with lemon, and finally decadent hollandaise sauce.
The finished dish is seriously impressive and much more filling than eggs benedict on its own. You could even skip the English muffin, as the meal would work just as well with a crab cake at the base.
The recipe includes a full ingredients list and instructions for making crab cakes. These rely on plenty of crab, plus breadcrumbs, a large egg lemon juice, and a variety of seasoning ingredients. Of course, you could easily use your own favorite crab cakes instead.
Brussels Sprouts Salad
Raw brussels sprouts are surprisingly excellent as the base of a salad. The trick is to shave the brussels sprouts thinly to make them easy to eat. The salad should also include a dressing, which softens the sprouts and makes them more enjoyable.
Of course, Brussels sprouts aren’t the only ingredient present. These salads often use other ingredients as well, such as chopped nuts, dried fruit and sometimes fresh herbs.
Warm Brussels Sprouts Salad With Maple Bacon Dressing
This Warm Brussels Sprouts Salad with Maple Bacon Dressing is like heaven on a plate. It includes shredded brussels sprouts, toasted almonds, dried cranberries, and crisp bacon. The dried cranberries offer a fantastic burst of flavor, while the bacon adds rich savory notes.
Then there’s the dressing, which features maple for sweetness and even more bacon. You even have the option of cooking the salad further than normal. Doing so would make the meal less like a salad and more like a side dish, but you’d get the same delicious flavors either way.
Lemon Rice Pilaf
If your crab cakes mostly consist of crab with little filler, a carby side is the perfect way to balance your meal. While most rice dishes will do the trick, a lemon rice pilaf is particularly hard to beat.
Much of the appeal is the lemon flavor. This is bright, vibrant, and perfectly refreshing. It’s also a straightforward dish to make. You just need a lemon or two, rice, broth, and a selection of seasoning ingredients.
Healthy Greek Lemon Rice
This Healthy Greek Lemon Rice recipe relies on lemon, sauteed onions, garlic, and plenty of herbs, all of which provide plenty of flavor. The trick is to use fresh lemon juice in the rice. Don’t use the store bought version, as the flavor simply won’t be the same.
If you want a little more flavor, you could add a little butter to the rice. This makes it richer and even more exciting.
Also, the bright yellow color of the rice comes from turmeric powder. It just takes a pinch of the powder to color the rice and add to the flavor complexity.
Mac And Cheese
Mac and cheese is almost impossible to beat. It’s a rich, creamy, and incredibly delicious dish – one that works well as a side for countless main meals.
The benefit here is that mac and cheese is incredibly comforting. That’s fantastic alongside your crab cakes, especially if you live somewhere where crab is fairly cheap. You can also elevate your mac and cheese to make it a touch more refined, like by using truffle oil or parmesan cheese.
If the combo of mac and cheese and crab cakes feels a bit too heavy, try adding a lighter side as well. A light salad or perhaps coleslaw would be a fantastic addition.
The Best Haitian Mac N Cheese
This Haitian Mac and Cheese offers a tropical twist on traditional mac and cheese, using bell peppers for color, plus evaporated milk and mayonnaise to provide plenty of creaminess.
The author mentions that this isn’t a great make-ahead recipe. It tastes best if you serve the mac and cheese soon after it has been made.
Still… if you do try it, the flavors should be excellent alongside any type of crab cake.
Vibrant Salsa
Finally, we have salsa. This is vibrant and delicious, plus it’s lighter than most of the other sides on this list.
The bright flavors of the salsa are refreshing, which makes them perfect when your crab cakes are very rich. You can also experiment with different types of salsa, like mango salsa, corn salsa, or avocado salsa.
Pineapple Mango Salsa
If you enjoy fruity flavors, this Pineapple Mango Salsa is a fantastic option. The combination of pineapple and mango means there’s plenty of acidity, which contrasts the richness of your crab cakes. The recipe also includes a little minced jalapeno. This provides just a hint of spiciness, which balances out the sweetness from all the fruit.
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