Yum Yum Kani Crab Salad

A Japanese classic and Hawaiian favorite, this easy cucumber crab salad requires only 5 ingredients and yet it’s SO scrumptious. The perfect blend of crunchy and creamy textures, with notes of sweet, salty, spicy and savory flavors, this popular salad is a delight for the senses. Often served in sushi houses, Kani salad IS a little reminiscent of sushi, with the matchstick-cut veggies, crab meat and that creamy addictive Japanese yum yum sauce. (Such an apt name for it!) Fortunately, you can make a tastier version of Kani salad at home for much less.

What does Kani mean?

Kani is the Japanese word for crab, so it is a little redundant for me to call it a Kani Crab salad, but I think that’s a little appropriate, in a way, so in all English, it would be Yum Yum Crab Crab Salad. Isn’t that fun to say?! Why did I add Yum Yum to the name? Because I used Japanese Yum Yum sauce as the dressing. I thought it would add a really nice flavor to this simple salad. When you’re making something with just a few ingredients, it’s always best to use really flavorful ingredients.

What is Japanese Yum Yum Sauce?

Japanese Yum Yum Sauce is a mayonnaise-based condiment often served in Japanese steak houses. While you can certainly purchase yum yum sauce (and if you do so via one of these handy links I’ve placed here for you, I’ll receive a small pittance to help fund the costs of running this blog), it is also VERY easy to make.

If you choose the route of making Yum Yum Sauce yourself, you can adjust the amount of heat to your own liking. Personally, that’s the route I took, and also took the liberty of adjusting my recipe to make it a little healthier. I left out the butter and sugar, and used 1/2 cup light mayonnaise and 3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt in place of the portions you’ll see in the recipe. You still end up with a nice creamy dressing with plenty of delightful flavor and a little kick that I think is just perfect in this salad. I’ve got no doubts that the original recipe would yield similar results, but with a little more of the indulgence you get from eating fat and sugar.

Should I use real crab or imitation crab meat in Kani salad?

If you have real lump crab meat available to you, I would definitely recommend using real crab! That said, people often use imitation crab meat when making Japanese Kani salad. While normally I’m more of a crab purist, I happened to have some of the imitation crab meat in my freezer left over from a sushi class I did, so this Kani salad seemed like a really good way to use some of that krab up.

Honest moment: before I made this, I had never even heard of Kani salad. I stumbled across mention of it on a blog post I was reading for some Hawaiian pie recipe. The pie looked good, but once she mentioned that she’d been eating Kani salad all summer (with no link!), I was curious to know what Kani salad was. I cruised around the web and very quickly discovered that Kani salad is definitely something I was missing out on and there are many variations. Some have mango, some leave it out. Some sprinkle panko bread crumbs on top. Some are simply cucumber with no carrot. Some included a recipe for the dressing, others simply called for Japanese mayo.

I looked at many various recipes for Kani salad before I decided I could seriously do this my own way and so I took a couple of the mini English cucumbers my parents had picked from their garden and given me and I started slicing. I decided on yum yum sauce for the dressing because it seemed like the right thing to do. A little while later, I had a beautiful Japanese salad looking up at me. I was SUPER excited to dig into this salad. One bite and I was HOOKED … I couldn’t stop eating this deliciousness! Kani salad is such a perfect light summer meal — it’s cool, it’s refreshing and it takes minimal effort to make.

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