This crab salad is a blend of imitation crab, vegetables and herbs, all tossed in a simple creamy dressing. A quick and easy salad that’s perfect served over lettuce, with crackers, or in a sandwich.
I’m always looking for new lunch options, some of my favorites include rainbow veggie pinwheels and Greek pasta salad. This crab salad can be made in less than 10 minutes, is packed with protein and is totally delicious!
I’m always tempted to pick up those ready made salads at my local deli counter, but doing that on a regular basis can add up really quickly! This crab salad is a copy of the seafood salad my grocery store makes. It’s inexpensive to make and tastes even better than the store bought version.
What is imitation crab?
Crab salad is often made with imitation crab, because it’s inexpensive, available year round, and can be found in almost every grocery store. Imitation crab is made of mild white fish, typically Alaskan Pollock, which is blended with other ingredients to form a product that looks and tastes similar to real crab. You can use real crab in your crab salad if you prefer, but it’s definitely easier to go with imitation crab.
How do you make crab salad?
This crab salad is a mixture of imitation crab flakes, celery, red onion, fresh dill, lemon juice, Old Bay seasoning and mayonnaise. Everything gets mixed together in a big bowl, then you can either chill your salad, or serve it immediately.
Tips for Crab Salad
- I use imitation crab flakes because they’re already cut into bite sized pieces. You can also buy the stick-style imitation crab and slice it yourself.
- I highly recommend using fresh dill, the flavor is superior to dried dill. If you need to use dried dill, you can substitute 1/2 teaspoon of dried for fresh.
- You can use low fat mayonnaise if desired.
- I recommend making sure your red onion is finely chopped so that you don’t get large pieces in each bite. You can also use sliced green onions instead of red onion for a milder flavor.
- This crab salad can be kept in the fridge for up to 2 days.
- You can add other ingredients to this salad, such as diced cucumber, or even other seafood such as shrimp.
Ways to serve crab salad
You can eat this crab salad as-is, or serve it in a variety of different presentations.
- Lettuce: Spoon your crab into a butter lettuce cup.
- Crackers: Serve your salad with a side of buttery crackers.
- Sandwich: Add your crab to a toasted roll along with some green leaf lettuce.
- Avocado: Spoon your crab into an avocado half.
- Pasta: Add 8 ounces of cooked short pasta to make a pasta salad.
- Cucumber: Spoon onto cucumber slices for an easy party snack.
- Puff Pastry: Fill up cooked puff pastry shells with the salad.
Once you try this crab salad, you’ll be hooked. It’s so much fresher tasting than the deli version and the recipe can easily be doubled or tripled to serve a crowd!
More salad recipes
- Pesto Pasta Salad
- Cucumber Tomato Salad
- Avocado Chickpea Salad
- Black Bean and Corn Salad
- Creamy Cucumber Salad
Crab Salad Video
Crab Salad
Ingredients
- 1 pound imitation crab meat flaked style, or sticks cut into slices
- 1/2 cup celery finely chopped
- 3 tablespoons red onion finely chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh dill chopped, plus more for garnish
Instructions
- Add all of the ingredients to a large bowl. Stir gently to combine.
- Serve immediately, or cover and chill for up to 2 days.
- Sprinkle with additional chopped dill for garnish if desired.
Just made this is very good
Excellent recipe for crab salad. I added some orange and red peppers for extra color it was great.
I made this tonight for dinner and it was delicious!!! I did not have Ole Bay seasoning, so Slap Your Ma’am was the substitute I used. This recipe is definitely a keeper!! Thank you for sharing the recipe.
Can I add cheese tortellini?
Yes that’s fine!
I am not a personal fan of celery, I swap mine out for diced cucumbers and I also add a little garlic powder. Fair warning though, I do find that this gets a little more watery overnight because of the cucumbers – on the rare cases I’ve had leftovers. LOL.
Alternatively: This also mixes well with corn (I use 1 can of sweet corn drained) and cilantro with some diced jalapeno & mixed bell peppers (instead of celery/cucumbers), if you want to give it more of a fiesta mix.
This crab salad is such a hit in our house, and it’s become a great go-to for fast snacks/meals because of how easy it is to put together, and it’s versatility.
Just made this for lunch. Great taste and fast to make. Thank you
Made your crab salad, it was very good. Thanks !!!
Has anyone made a Crab Salad with real crab meat? There are too many carbs in imitation crab meat for me, so I want to use real. Is there anything different I need to do?
Real crab meat will work just fine! You don’t need to do anything different.
Tried similar recipes before, but your had better amount of seasoning, others were too much of Old Bay.
This is seriously the BEST imitation crab salad I have EVER had! EVER!!! I did not have celery, so I ground some celery seed up (about 1 teaspoon) and it turned out delicious!! I am SO thrilled I found your recipe! THANK YOU!!!!
Great flavor I added tarragon to the mix