The 2 Ingredients You Need to Get the Texture of Vegan Crab Cakes

If you think vegans can’t enjoy seafood, think again. While it’s true that you’ll want to avoid fish foods if you’re following a plant-based diet, there are many worthy, fish-free substitutes to satisfy your craving. You can use jackfruit in place of sardines, use canned artichokes to make a makeshift tuna salad, and cook with two specific vegan ingredients to give the texture to crab cakes: cans of chickpeas and hearts of palm .

A classic crab cake recipe uses crab meat (of course) and crushed crackers to give you patties that are crispy on the outside and flaky on the inside. When you blend chickpeas and hearts of palm in a food processor, you get a very similar consistency mixture. Both of these ingredients are moist and have a bit of a bite, so they shouldn’t get mushy in your patties, but they should provide just enough juiciness. Plus, hearts of palm even look a bit like crab meat, as they come in long white stems that shred easily.

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Brine and seaweed bring flavor to seafood-free crab cakes

Although chickpeas and hearts of palm make the perfect base for vegan crab cakes, you’ll still need a few extra ingredients to make everything. Hearts of palm are usually canned with brine, so you’re already dipping your toes in the salt water. But you’ll also need diced seaweed sheets (aka nori) or dulse pellets (which are another type of seaweed). To complete your flavor profile, add some Old Bay seasoning, lemon juice, chopped parsley, minced garlic, and Dijon mustard into the mix. Once you are satisfied with this formula, do not hesitate to experiment a little yourself. Crab cakes containing shredded zucchini provide plenty of moisture and texture, while vegan Worcestershire sauce brings a crab cake taste and lion’s mane mushrooms are packed with umami flavor.

To prepare your chickpeas and hearts of palm for the patties, you will need to blend the two together in the food processor. Make sure you don’t overdo it, as you still want a good amount of texture here. As an alternative, you can slice your hearts of palm diagonally until they resemble shredded crab meat. Next, you’ll want to combine these two with all your other ingredients, plus panko breadcrumbs, vegan mayonnaise, and a little aquafaba (aka chickpea liquid) if you need a little extra moisture .

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