This quick and easy Russian crab salad recipe makes a nostalgic Soviet-era crab stick salad that’s one of the most popular Russian salads over Christmas-New Year. Starting out in life as a salad of fresh crab and mayonnaise, canned crab was later used until imitation crab or kanikama was invented in Japan in 1974. While this recipe makes a retro classic, you could replace crab sticks with fresh crab meat, or fresh crayfish or lobster.
As my Russian family recipes, especially my recipes for traditional Russian Christmas-New Year dishes – everything from devilled eggs and smoked salmon potato salad to blini with smoked salmon and caviar and my DIY blini platter – are popular right now with readers searching for Christmas food, I thought I’d share more of my family recipes for the festive season.
If, like my mum, you love crab sticks and often have a pack in the freezer or the cost of living crisis has had you reaching for canned crab meat, try this versatile Russian crab salad recipe for a nostalgic dish from the Soviet Union, when canned food was promoted due to food shortages, and crab sticks exploded in popularity in the USSR and around the world in the 1970s after they were invented in Japan.
Crab sticks are popular again due to their sustainability and affordability. But if you’re not a fan and don’t share my enthusiasm for recreating historical dishes, you can use canned crab or fresh crab, lobster or crayfish in this salad, as the elites did during the Russian Empire, before the Russian Revolution democratised food. Indulge as the tsars did and spoon generous dollops of caviar on the salad.
I’ll tell you more about this Russian crab salad recipe below. Looking for more cooking inspiration? We have many hundreds of recipes in our archives, and you can save recipes you like by clicking on the heart on the right of each post to save your favourites in your own private account.
Russian Crab Salad Recipe for a Nostalgic Soviet Era Crab Stick Salad
This Russian crab salad recipe calls for crab sticks, also called or surimi, seafood sticks or seafood extender, because they don’t actually include crab. ‘Surimi’ is the Japanese name for the pulverised white fish that comprises around half the ingredients, so ‘seafood sticks’ is more accurate; ‘fish sticks’ more so, but how to describe the bright orange-red coloured exterior?
They were first marketed as crab sticks, as they were crab-flavoured and shaped and coloured to resemble boiled crab legs. In Japan, crab sticks are called ‘kanikama’, a portmanteau of ‘kani’, which means ‘crab’, and ‘kama’ from ‘kamaboko’ or ‘fish cakes’.
If you’ve eaten in Asia, you might be familiar with the fishy taste and bouncy texture of fish cakes and fish balls. Fish cakes are used in everything from Singaporean seafood curry laksa and Malaysian char kway teow, while fish balls feature in Thai-Chinese soups and Chinese style hot pots.
In Southeast Asia, fish balls are fried and steamed on sticks like satay and sold as street food snacks, while crab sticks feature chopped up in fried rice and stir-fried noodles. Here in Australia, creamy seafood stick salads, drowning in mayonnaise, are sold in containers in supermarkets as take-home meals.
Soon after their invention in Japan, crab sticks began to get used in maki, or more correctly ‘makizushi’, often misnamed ‘sushi’, but which actually means ‘sushi rolls’, as they’re made from sushi rice and fillings rolled up in ‘nori’ or seaweed wraps. The star maki of the 1980s was was the California Roll, made with crab stick and avocado.
I was raised a seafood lover but it was a love of fresh seafood instilled in me, not crab sticks or canned seafood. Unless it was the smoked mussels and smoked oysters, fashionable in the 1970s and featuring on every canapé tray or buffet table – alongside platters of fresh oysters and prawn cocktails.
So this Russian crab salad recipe, calling for highly processed crab sticks, was something of an anomaly for my fresh seafood loving family – although I had no idea as a child that crab sticks were made in factories, and that they weren’t even made with crabs.
I’d forgotten about this Soviet-era crab stick salad recipe entirely until I returned to Australia late last year to see a container of creamy crab stick salad in mum’s fridge, which she’d bought from the supermarket. Sadly, mum no longer loves to cook. The salad was awful, made with cheap mayonnaise, and sickeningly sweet.
I resolved to make mum this more delicious Russian crab salad recipe, but I’ve only just got around to it. I’ve been making many of the dishes we used to eat around my grandparents’ dining table this year – partly to test recipes for my Russian-Ukrainian cookbook and partly to spark mum’s memory for the family history component of the book. The power of food to do that is incredible.
Although I had no idea I’d still be in Australia now, I was planning to make this Russian crab salad recipe when the weather warmed up, as it’s best served chilled on a balmy summer’s day. But as I said, if you’re not a fan of crab sticks, use canned crab or fresh crab, and do as the tzars chefs did for the extravagant banquets they prepared during the Russian Empire and spoon dollops of caviar on top.
Tips to Making this Russian Crab Salad Recipe for a Nostalgic Soviet Era Crab Stick Salad
I only have a few tips to making this quick and easy Russian crab salad recipe for a nostalgic Soviet-era crab stick salad, as it’s super easy and comes together in minutes.
Prep the Ingredients
The first thing to do is to boil the eggs until hard boiled following Terence’s guide to how to boil eggs perfectly every time. Set the timer and while the eggs are boiling you can prep the other ingredients.
Frozen crab sticks or seafood sticks are cooked so you don’t need to do anything to them except dice them into cubes around the same size as your vegetables. And of course, if you prefer, use canned crab or fresh crab, or even fresh lobster or crayfish.
Assemble the Crab Salad
To a salad bowl, add the diced crab sticks (or fresh crab meat), diced boiled eggs, diced red onion, diced cucumber, canned corn kernels, mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and fresh dill and parsley.
Stir to combine well, taste, and adjust the mayonnaise, seasoning and fresh herbs to suit your palate, then garnish with more fresh herbs.
Serve the Crab Salad
If you’re sitting down to a shared family meal, serve the salad as a series of appetisers or zakuski, with black rye bread and plates of gherkins, charcuterie and cheeses, Russian stuffed eggs or devilled eggs, blini with smoked salmon and caviar, and Russian salads, such as the beetroot potato salad and Russian potato salad or Olivier salad.
If you’re having a stand-up soiree or casual gathering for Christmas or New Year, you could serve small portions of the crab salad in glasses, as I do my Russian mimosa salad, with a dollop of caviar on top and small forks or spoons for eating.
Russian Crab Salad Recipe for a Nostalgic Soviet Era Crab Stick Salad
Equipment
Ingredients
- 300 g crab sticks - diced or fresh crab meat
- 2 hard boiled eggs - peeled and diced
- 1 small red onion - diced
- 1 cucumber - diced
- 400 g canned corn - drained
- 4 tbsp mayonnaise - or to taste
- ½ tsp salt - or to taste
- ½ tsp black pepper - or to taste
- 2 tbsp fresh dill - sprigs only
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley - finely chopped
Instructions
- To a salad bowl, add the diced crab sticks (or fresh crab meat), diced boiled eggs, diced red onion, diced cucumber, corn kernels, mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and fresh dill and parsley.
- Stir to combine well, taste, and adjust the mayonnaise, seasoning and fresh herbs to suit your palate, then garnish with more fresh herbs.
- Serve with black rye bread and Russian zakuski or starters such as plates of gherkins, charcuterie and cheeses, devilled eggs or Russian stuffed eggs, blini with smoked salmon and caviar, and Russian salads.
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make our Russian crab salad recipe, as we’d love to hear how it turns out for you, and don’t hesitate to ask questions or share feedback in the comments below.
