Seafood and biscuits is one of those really unlikely combos that doesn’t seem like it should go together yet it does. Adding a little seafood to a biscuit can be quite a treat. Trader Joe’s impressed us with their Shrimp Toast in the past, so we thought we should probably give the Trader Joe’s Crab Cakes a shot as well.
These little guys come two in a package, and they’re vacuum-sealed for freshness.
These are quite easy to cook. Simply preheat your oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit, pop a crab cake or two on a cookie sheet, and cook for ten minutes. Well, that’s according to the box, anyway. We found that at the ten-minute mark, these were still extremely soft and mushy, so we gave them a few extra minutes. After that, pull them out, flip them over, and give them another two to four minutes. It’s as easy as that. Oh, and we should point out that the package warns you to not let these thaw at all before you cook them.
Now that the baking business is taken care of, let’s give these a try and see how they taste.
We should point out that while these look like crispy little biscuits on the package, that’s not how they come out at all. There’s not as much biscuit as you’d expect, so these end up feeling a bit like globs of tuna fried on a cookie sheet. We would have loved it if these were more biscuit-y, but alas, that was not to be. Fate just didn’t have biscuit-y biscuits in store for us today.
And, of course, that means these are extra seafood-y. If you’re looking for a subtle crab flavor, these aren’t going to be your thing. Remember what we said earlier about these having the consistency of scoops of tuna? Well, that’s a pretty accurate description of the flavor as well. Of course, these also have a little bit of sweetness to them. We actually think these would taste quite good with a dab of soy sauce.
Now, the package has a warning on it that these might have pieces of crabshell in them, and we found this to be true. We had a few hard pieces mixed in, which felt a little bit like finding a bone in a piece of fish, though quite a bit less stabby.
These are obviously intended as a side. While it’s tempting to fill up on crab cakes, remember what your parents used to tell you when you went to Red Lobster: “Don’t fill up on crab cakes, my dear.” Anyway, these are not going to bust a diet, even if you eat both at once. Each crab cake has 90 calories (25 from fat) and 430 mg of sodium.
Trader Joe’s Crab Cakes are a halfway decent side dish for crab enthusiasts. Just don’t expect some crispy biscuits, because these are more like warm globs of tasty crab meat. We found them to be pretty good, but we have a feeling there are a lot of people who buy these expecting something considerably different from what these actually are.
If you want to learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients in these Trader Joe’s Crab Cakes, check out our package scans below.