The 12 Healthiest Crab Cake Brands On The Market
Crab cakes have likely been around for hundreds of years, with roots in pre-colonial North America, but they only started to show up in cookbooks relatively recently. One of the earliest usages of the term "crab cakes" appeared in the 1891 book "Cookery With A Chafing Dish," with a simple recipe combining crab meat, eggs, and seasonings. This is the basis of many modern crab cake recipes. The general components are the meat, some form of binder (usually breadcrumbs or mayonnaise), and flavor elements, like spices or mustard.
But while crab cakes are made with everyday ingredients at home, it's a different story with store-bought options. This food is often marketed as being fresh, wholesome, and straight from the sea — and yet the nutritional values can often contradict this, with high amounts of fat, sugar, and salt. What's more, modern crab cake products can be surprisingly low in the very ingredient that gives them their name and therefore can be lacking in quality protein. Thankfully, there are loads of options out there that are worth your time and money.
1. Whole Catch
Whole Foods is committed to offering natural, nutritious products to its customers — a mission it's been pursuing since first opening in 1980. Since then, the grocery store chain has developed an enormous range of items that it sells across its more than 500 stores. It even offers a number of seafood products, including its Whole Catch crab cakes.
These Maryland Style crab Cakes are a reflection of the store's ethos, as they are predominantly made with organic ingredients. The eggs that are used in the recipe come from cage-free hens, and the product is paleo-friendly and dairy-free.
Even foods with organic ingredients, however, can still be pretty unhealthy if they have huge amounts of fat or sodium — but that's not the case here. Whole Catch Maryland Style Crab Cakes have a low saturated fat content, with just 5% of your daily value in each cake, and no trans fats. While they do have sodium — one cake has 20% of your recommended allowance — it's still a lower amount than competitor brands, and the lower carb content speaks to the lack of unnecessary filler ingredients.
Additionally, there's a pleasing 10 grams of protein in every serving. Protein, remember, isn't just important to build muscle. Getting enough can stop you from getting hungry too quickly after a meal, keep your bones strong as you get older, and may even have a positive effect on blood pressure, according to Healthline.
2. Sizzlefish
Sizzlefish is one of the highest-profile fish and seafood delivery services in the country, and it puts a great deal of thought and attention into how it gets its product to your door. But all of those logistics mean nothing if the product itself isn't nutritious and wholesome.
Luckily, its Gluten Free Maryland Crabcakes hit the spot on that front. The first thing that jumps out about these cakes is their super-high protein content. While other crab cakes may be padded out with flour or breadcrumbs, the generous amount of blue crab meat in each cake gives them 18 grams of protein each, about a third of the amount that the average 140-pound person requires every day.
Sizzlefish Gluten Free Maryland Crab Cakes are also incredibly low in carbohydrates, with 5 grams in each serving. They are also made with recognizable ingredients, and they don't have any trans fats. Of course, they're gluten-free, making them a fantastic choice for folks with gluten sensitivity, a wheat allergy, celiac disease, or those who may have previously been excluded from enjoying wheat-containing crab cake products.
Remember, though, that eating gluten-free foods may not have any specific health benefits if you don't have a natural gluten intolerance. While claims have been made to this effect, further research needs to be conducted to fully assess the impact, according to Mayo Clinic.
3. Good Catch
When a company is called Good Catch, you can expect it to flaunt some sustainable fishing practices. So it's probably a little surprising to hear that Good Catch uses no fish whatsoever in its products. Instead, the brand makes plant-based seafood products, which avoid any artificial flavors or unhealthy fats, to promote an altogether more healthy and environmentally-conscious diet.
This is reflected in its Plant-Based Crab Cakes. This New England recipe looks delicious. These crab cakes have barely any fat or saturated fat in them, and pack a whopping 20 grams of protein into each patty. They're also satisfyingly high in iron, providing a fifth of your required daily value per cake. What's best about these cakes, though, is the fact that they're pretty low in carbs. At 9 grams per serving, they're an awesome choice for folks following plant-based diets who are looking to keep their carb count down.
Eating less carbs can be tricky for plant-based individuals, as high-protein meat and seafood are excluded from their diets, meaning they sometimes have to rely more heavily on carbohydrate energy sources. But following a low-carb diet can provide some significant benefits, including weight loss and a reduced risk of heart disease — according to Mayo Clinic – making it a worthwhile pursuit for people who don't eat meat or fish.
4. Handy
If you want a gluten-free crab cake that hits the spot, you can't go wrong with Handy. These crab cakes go heavy on the meat and are mercifully free of any carb-heavy binders, with just 6 grams of carbohydrates per serving. Rather than using regular wheat breadcrumbs, Handy Gluten-Free Crab Cakes opt for a crumb made from a combination of potato, tapioca, and rice starches. It also flavors its products using a selection of natural flavors and seasonings. These crab cakes are also slightly lower in sodium than other options, making them a good choice if you're conscious of your salt intake.
While they do have a higher cholesterol count, this may not necessarily be a bad thing. "Your genetic makeup – not diet – is the driving force behind cholesterol levels. The body creates cholesterol in amounts much larger than what you can eat, so avoiding foods that are high in cholesterol won't affect your blood cholesterol levels very much," cardiologist Steven Nissen told Cleveland Clinic.
Nissen does warn, however, that if you are predisposed to cholesterol issues, or have a pre-existing medical condition like diabetes you should avoid consuming high amounts. Always check with your doctor if you're going to introduce high-cholesterol foods into your diet and are concerned about the impact.
5. Phillips Seafood
Costco may pride itself on its ability to offer bulk items at competitive prices, but it's not as well known for the nutritious quality of its foods. Every now and again, though, it stocks an item that's both plentiful and relatively good for you. Its Phillips Crab Cake Minis – which are also available in other stores — is one such product.
These fun-sized cakes are particularly attractive due to their sodium levels, which are one of the lowest of any commercially produced crab cakes on the market. Six mini cakes will set you back 270 milligrams of sodium, or 12% of your daily value — which is not bad for a processed food.
Phillips Crab Cake Minis are also refreshingly low in carbohydrates, with only 6 grams in every serving. Of these 6 grams, none of them are sugars or added sugars. The ingredients list, meanwhile, is free of any confusing or obscure items, and instead full of additions that you'll likely have in your own cupboard, like Worcestershire sauce, eggs, paprika, and mustard powder. Even its breadcrumbs, which can sometimes contain an array of oils, starches, sweeteners, and additional ingredients, are pretty simple, made from just wheat flour, salt, sugar, and yeast.
6. Sam's Choice
The brand Sam's Choice will be familiar to anyone who shops in Walmart. Named after the store's founder, Sam Walton, the brand began with a lone cola product and quickly expanded to encompass multiple other items, including bagels, bacon, pickle chips, and crab cakes.
It's a pleasant surprise to learn that despite being a relatively affordable option, Sam's Choice Frozen Premium Lump Crab Cakes invests in its nutritional value. These crab cakes are protein-rich, dishing up 14 grams of seafood protein in every two cakes. As well as this, they also keep things relatively low on the fat frontier, with no trans fat and a modest amount of saturated fat.
Don't forget about the nutritional value of the crab meat itself. Some of the fat in Sam's Choice Frozen Premium Lump Crab Cakes comes from the omega-3 fatty acids present in crab meat, which are instrumental in improving blood cholesterol levels, according to WebMD. The omega-3s in crab meat can also have a positive effect on brain function and help to keep age-related brain conditions at bay. Crab meat is also high in several B vitamins, including vitamin B12, which also helps to preserve brain function, according to the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
7. Gorton's
Gorton's is one of the most recognizable seafood brands out there, and for good reason. Born in 1849, the company has become well-known for its Gorton's Fisherman mascot and its reliable selection of battered, frozen seafood staples. What it's less well-known for is offering healthy options, but somewhat surprisingly, its Maryland Style Crab Cakes look pretty wholesome.
Each of these crab cakes has a fairly low fat content, as well as 7 grams of carbohydrates per serving. Of those carbohydrates, 2 grams of them are fiber, a pleasing addition that's not seen across the board with other commercially-made crab cakes, which tend to bind the protein together solely with starchy, refined options. Also included in this modest fat content is a high proportion of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. These are healthier fats that tend to appear in seafood, and which have a plethora of health benefits.
Polyunsaturated fats, for example, can be beneficial for breastfeeding infants – if eaten by their parents — with a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology arguing that language and motor skills could be benefitted by the healthy fats from seafood. They can also be great for your heart health and are potentially way healthier than saturated fats, which Gorton's crab cakes keep in low quantities.
8. Zatarain's
Do you want an easy crab cake that you don't have to make from scratch? Zatarain's has you covered. The McCormick-owned brand — which focuses on bringing Louisiana flavors to a wider audience — makes creating your own crab cakes a breeze, with its Crab Cake Mix.
Before you scoff and reach for a box of frozen crab cakes, trust us — this product is worth the effort nutritionally. Zatarain's Crab Cake Mix has no fat whatsoever, and is lower in sodium than other commercial crab cakes, with 10% of your daily value in every serving. Additionally, its carb count is fairly low, while still packing in a huge amount of flavor in every cake. This all means, in effect, that you can create crab cakes that are far healthier than the ones you might find in the freezer section, especially if you add no extra sodium, use low-fat binders, and cram your cakes with as much crab meat as possible for some quality protein.
As well as this, Zatarain's sneaks some extra goodies into its crab cake mix by way of vitamins and minerals. There's an enormous amount of vitamin C in each serving, almost half of the average adult's daily recommended value, and 10% of your vitamin A allowance.
9. Good & Gather
Target's Good & Gather line covers all the basics and then some. Nestled in its product range is its Frozen Mini Crab Cakes, made with snow crab meat. While party-focused frozen products like this one have a tendency to be all filler, no killer, Good & Gather's offering keeps things clean, with no artificial preservatives or flavors, a low amount of saturated fat, and a high protein count in the serving size. With 20 grams of protein in every package, these cakes can hit a significant proportion of your daily recommended intake.
But the main reason we love these Frozen Mini Crab Cakes might be surprising: It's the calcium count that's really doing it for us. In each serving, there's 15% of your daily value for calcium. This may not seem like much, but if you're following a dairy-free diet, calcium can be hard to come by from other sources. That's bad news for your bones, considering that calcium is one of the main minerals needed to build and maintain bone health, reports the National Institutes of Health. Your muscles, too, need calcium to function properly, as do your blood vessels, nerves, and a host of other bodily functions.
10. OmniFoods
Plant-based meat and seafood substitutes have emerged for pretty much everything, and crab cakes are no exception. Luckily, though, a few of the plant-based crab cakes out there have managed to avoid the high fat and sugar contents that can often go into processed vegan foods. OmniFoods Plant-Based Frozen Packaged Appetizer Crab Cakes are a great option if you want to keep things relatively healthy. Each generous serving size has only 10% of your saturated fat daily value and a substantial amount of iron.
They also have a satisfyingly high amount of fiber, with 3 grams per serving. This is a good amount, especially for an appetizer, and covers a fair amount of the recommended daily intake for both men and women, helping to keep your digestive system healthy and having a positive bearing on blood sugar levels, EatingWell reports.
Furthermore, OmniFoods' crab cakes have no cholesterol in them. While eating modest amounts of cholesterol isn't an issue for most people, individuals who have health conditions that prevent them from eating it healthily will be pleased with this option. One thing to note about this crab cake option, however, is that its sodium level is higher than others on the market, so make sure you're balancing it out by reducing your intake elsewhere.
11. Private Selection
With almost 2,800 stores across the country, the Kroger Company is hardly shy and retiring in the supermarket industry. With such a large selection of stores comes a very large selection of products, including its own-brand crab cakes. Part of Kroger's Private Selection line, created to offer a high-end product at a reasonable price, the Maryland Style Crab Cakes are both classy and healthy.
These crab cakes are relatively low in carbohydrates, pretty high in protein, and have a low saturated fat content. But what stands out the most is the sodium level. With just 350 milligrams in each cake, they use far less sodium than other alternatives out there, which gives you reassurance that it's achieving its flavor through quality ingredients.
Remember, eating too much sodium does far more than just leave you needing water. "As your blood volume [of sodium] increases, your heart has to work harder to pump blood throughout your body," clinical dietitian Amanda Meadows told Houston Methodist. "This then increases pressure in your arteries." Meadows also explains that this can have a knock-on effect on all your other organs, with their blood vessels being impacted, potentially affecting function. This is a process that occurs over time and thanks to repeatedly high levels of sodium in the diet, but making small changes daily — like buying crab cakes that have less salt — can make a difference.
12. Waterfront Bistro
Safeway's Waterfront Bistro line has only been around since 2009, but it's made a big splash (sorry, we couldn't resist) in that time. The supermarket's seafood line stocks crab cakes alongside its other products, and they're a great choice for folks who want a healthy option. Waterfront Bistro Crab Cakes are refreshingly low in sodium in comparison to others on the market, with 16% of your daily allowance per cake. If eaten with a lightly dressed side salad or some plain potatoes, this could make for a simple, low-sodium lunch or dinner.
Waterfront Bistro crab cakes are also fairly low in fat and saturated fat, and they have no trans fats whatsoever. There's also a small amount of fiber in every cake and just a single gram of added sugars. Furthermore, the Waterfront Bistro brand prides itself on using quality, sustainably sourced seafood, meaning that you can rest easy in the fact that you're eating a crab cake that's not only decent nutrition-wise but is also healthy for the planet. Importantly, though, these crab cakes are somewhat higher in carbohydrates than other brands (with 21 grams in each serving), which it's useful to be aware of.