Tender, sweet crab is packed into crisp cakes and served on buttery brioche slider buns with a homemade aioli to make your new favorite appetizer. Fancy yet homey, these crab cake sliders with basil-avocado aioli are the perfect appetizer for any occasion.

A platter of crab cake sliders with a beer in the background and a mason jar of basil-avocado aioli.

Jump to:

Ingredients
Step-by-Step Instructions
Frying Vs. Broiling Crab Cakes
How to Make Basil-Avocado Aioli
Can You Freeze Crab Cakes?
Perfect Pairing
Need More Delicious Seafood Recipes?
📖 Recipe

Versatile recipes are a life-saver for anyone who loves entertaining. For some occasions, you take the time to meticulously plan the menu, choose drink pairings, pick the perfect linens and so on.

And then there are the other times —- when life is too busy to worry about menu planning, so you need a few stand-by recipes that are always a crowd favorite and fit any gathering. Enter crab cake sliders with this homemade basil-avocado aioli.

If you feel like classing up the joint, crab cakes give an elegant feel, and the basil-avocado aioli adds an extra gourmet touch. At the same time, we’re talking about sliders, which easily fit with more casual get-togethers. You could serve these crab cake sliders at a sophisticated New Year’s Eve extravaganza or a casual game-watching party, and these tasty, little bites will feel right at home.

Related: For more slide ideas, try these ham and cheese sliders from Glenda Embree.

Ingredients

Let's take a quick moment to chat ingredients for our crab cake sliders. Here's everything we need.

Crab meat
Egg
Old Bay seasoning (obviously)
Mayonnaise
Worcestershire sauce
Dijon mustard
Lemon zest
Oil if frying (more on that later)

For the crab meat, make sure you get the real stuff. That imitation crab stuff is no good here. You can use lump meat, jumbo lump meat or a combination of the two. As long as you get real crab, you're good to go.

And then there's our homemade basil-avocado aioli. For that, here's what we need.

Fresh basil
Avocado
Garlic
Lemon juice
Egg yolk
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Looking down on a tray of crab cake sliders with a jar of basil-avocado aioli.

Step-by-Step Instructions

If you’ve never made crab cakes, they might seem intimidating, but they’re actually simple to prepare. Can you mix ingredients together in a bowl? I assume the answer is yes so congrats! You can make crab cakes.

To make our crab cakes, we first mix together a pound of crab with 15 crushed saltine crackers. In another bowl, we whisk together an egg, Old Bay seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, Dijon mustard, fresh lemon zest and mayonnaise. We then pour that over our crab and cracker, stir to combine and refrigerate for an hour.

Crushed saltine crackers to make crab cake sliders.

Mixing crushed saltine crackers with crab meat.

The crab cake mixture with the whisked egg mixture.

After refrigerating, we're ready to form our crab cake patties. While we can certainly do this by hand, I prefer to use a 2-inch cookie cutter for sliders. The size is perfect, and it makes sure our crab cakes are all uniform in size. And just like that, we're ready to cook our crab cakes.

Filling cookie cutters with crab cake mixture.

Frying Vs. Broiling Crab Cakes

We can cook our crab cakes by either frying or broiling. I’ve fried and broiled crab cakes and actually prepared the crab cakes both ways for these photos for a side-by-side comparison.

The verdict? I prefer broiling.

Obviously, fried food is delicious. You can’t convince me otherwise.

But when it comes to crab cakes, I find it unnecessary. The taste difference between the two methods is hardly noticeable, and broiling requires less fuss and mess. Plus, the crab cakes cook more evenly with broiling.

I provide directions in the recipe card for both methods. Ultimately, both will give you a delicious crab cake, and it comes down to personal preference.

How to Make Basil-Avocado Aioli

And then there's our basil-avocado aioli, which is also as simple as can be. I like to take care of this step while the crab cakes refrigerate.

For this homemade aioli, we toss an egg yolk, half an avocado, lemon juice, some garlic cloves and a handful of fresh basil into a food processor and pulse it a few times to begin combining the ingredients like so.

Starting to blend the basil-avocado aioli so that it comes together.

Then, with the food processor running, we slowly stream in some olive oil. Give it a taste and add enough salt and pepper to your liking.

For easy entertaining, you can take care of this step ahead of time and store in the refrigerator. Just know that the oil will solidify so make sure you bring it out before serving to get the oil to come up in temperature and turn back to more of a liquid state.

Can You Freeze Crab Cakes?

Absolutely. Once we form our patties, we wrap them in plastic wrap and store in a freezer-safe bag. This is great for entertaining because you can mostly take care of the work ahead of time.

A close-up of a single crab cake slider on a tray.

A front view of a crab cake slider with Old Bay seasoning and a beer.

Perfect Pairing

Craving a beer to go with these crab cake sliders? You can't go wrong with a witbier, which is one of my favorite pairings with seafood. Witbier comes with a touch of malt sweetness that's perfect with the crab as well as some bright citrus undertones. The spicy yeast is a delicious match to the herby aioli, and the body of the beer is light enough that it won't overpower the crab.

For those times you're in the mood for wine, a sauvignon blanc is a good call. I love the way the acidity, crisp finish and tropical fruit bring alive the crab, and we get subtle herbal notes that are perfect with our aioli.

Whether you feel a little fancy or more on the casual side, I hope you try these crab cake sliders with basil-avocado aioli. You'll love these versatile bites, no matter the occasion.

Cheers!

Focusing on one crab cake slider with a beer in the background.

Need More Delicious Seafood Recipes?

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Crab Cake Sliders With Basil-Avocado Aioli