Lion's mane mushroom crab cakes (meat-free)
A meatless "crab cake" recipe made with Lion's mane mushrooms, which have a nearly identical taste and texture to crab or lobster meat. You won't believe you're not eating seafood!
Ingredients
- 1 pound finely chopped or shredded lions mane our lion's mane was 1.2 pounds but was very wet from rain
- 1 cup large yellow or white onion, finely diced
- 6 cloves diced garlic
- 1/4 cup diced red sweet peppers
- 3/4 cup whole wheat bread crumbs or panko crumbs make your own by baking in oven on 200F for 20 minutes, then blending
- 2 duck eggs or large chicken eggs, beaten
- 3 Tbsp diced parsley
- 3/4 Tbsp sea salt or to taste
- 2 Tbsp butter, softened to room temperature This is mixed into the patties prior to cooking. Butter your pan separately as-needed.
- butter (or oil of your choice) for pan when pre-cooking mushrooms and when cooking crab cakes
- dash cayenne pepper (to add a hint of heat)
Instructions
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Place diced lion's mane, onions, and sweet peppers into lightly oiled/buttered skillet and sweat for about 15 minutes on medium-low heat (3 on our stove), stirring regularly. The aim is to remove almost all the water from the ingredients, otherwise your crab cakes won't hold together. After 15 minutes, add garlic and sweat for another 5 minutes until no water remains in pan and ingredients are lightly browned. *Our lion's mane was very wet due to recent rains, so if your lion's mane is dry, sweating will be faster (or you may even have to add a little water to your pan when starting so they don't burn). Remove from stove and let cool in bowl for 15-20 minutes. This should yield about 2 cups of cooked ingredients.
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Add all other ingredients into bowl and stir together. Then mush ingredients together by hand for a few minutes until thoroughly consolidated.
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Form and cook a single test cake before making an entire batch. You want to make sure the moisture levels are just right and that the cakes will hold together. Tip 1: Make smaller ~3" diameter cakes to help them stick together and flip easier (larger cakes are more difficult). Tip 2: Let cakes gel together for ~5 minutes before cooking. Cook test cake in buttered skillet on low heat (setting ~3). If the test cake comes apart in the pan, you'll want to add more beaten egg and bread crumbs then try again. Then cook the whole batch!
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Serve with Meyer lemon slices and our homemade garlic aioli sauce on top to make them even better! This recipe makes enough cakes for ~6 appetizer-sized servings or 3 large dinner servings.