Crab meat substitutes

Chop cooked shrimp to roughly pea size so the pieces bind together, then treat exactly as the recipe treats crab. The best all-round swap.

Best for

crab cakes, crab dip, crab rangoon, crab salad, pasta

Sweetness is close and the bite is firmer, so a shrimp cake has more chew than a crab cake and holds its shape better on the griddle. The flavor is unmistakably shrimp: a little more mineral, less delicate. A teaspoon of lemon juice and half a teaspoon of Old Bay per cup pushes it noticeably closer to crab.

Shred by hand along the grain rather than chopping, so you get flakes instead of cubes. Fold in at the end of any hot recipe, since it is already cooked.

Best for

crab dip, crab rangoon, crab salad, California rolls, budget crab cakes

In anything creamy or cold this is genuinely hard to catch, which is why restaurants use it. It is sweeter than real crab and has a springy, faintly starchy chew, so cut any sugar in the recipe and add extra lemon and Old Bay. In a plain hot crab cake the sweetness is more obvious and the texture goes rubbery if you overcook it.

Poach or bake the fillet, cool it, then flake it into large pieces. Season it separately before mixing so you can taste as you go.

Best for

crab cakes, crab dip, fish cakes, stuffing

The texture match is the best on this list: real flakes that fall apart in the mouth the way crab does, and they bind beautifully in a cake. What is missing is sweetness and brine, so add a pinch of sugar, a good pinch of salt, and a teaspoon of clam juice or a few drops of fish sauce per cup. Without that seasoning the cakes taste flat.

Drain well, remove any large bones or skin if you prefer, and flake. A pantry-staple answer for crab cakes specifically.

Best for

crab cakes, patties, dips

Salmon cakes bind at least as well as crab cakes and cost a tenth as much. The flavor difference is not subtle: canned salmon is oily and pronounced where crab is delicate, so the cake tastes rich and distinctly of salmon. A tablespoon of lemon juice, extra Old Bay, and plenty of chopped parsley and scallion keep it from feeling heavy.

Chop lobster or use thawed langostino tails whole, folded in at the end. The upgrade rather than the compromise.

Best for

crab dip, crab cakes, mac and cheese, salads, ravioli filling

Firmer, snappier and slightly less sweet than crab, so the dish reads as more substantial and less delicate. Because the pieces are chunkier, a lobster cake needs a little more binder to hold together than a crab cake does. Langostino is the affordable version of this option and behaves the same way.

Drain, rinse well, squeeze dry, then shred hearts of palm with a fork along the grain. Jackfruit in brine or water, not syrup, is shredded the same way.

Best for

vegan crab cakes, vegan crab dip, vegan crab salad

The shred is convincing enough that this is the standard vegan approach, and hearts of palm even flake like lump crab. What you get is texture and nothing else, since both are essentially flavorless and slightly acidic from the can. Add half a sheet of crumbled toasted nori, a teaspoon of lemon, extra mayonnaise and a good pinch of Old Bay per cup, and squeeze the water out hard or the cakes will not hold.