Today I made a broccoli and crab stick salad using frozen broccoli, which makes prep so much easier. Along with the broccoli and crab sticks, I added some onion for a nice crunch.
Korea’s been really hot lately, which makes it tough to keep fresh produce for long. So I’ve been leaning on frozen ingredients that store well.
Fresh vegetables are great when you can get to the store often, but for broccoli specifically, I actually prefer the frozen kind. It comes in bigger portions and is already prepped and ready to go.
This side dish comes together in just 15 minutes with a handful of ingredients. It’s ridiculously easy and tasty, and it’s the kind of dish that’ll bring your appetite back when you’re just not feeling hungry.
Let’s get into how to make it. This dish is a broccoli and crab stick salad (a Korean-style mayo-based veggie side).
Ingredients And Tools
Ingredients:
Frozen broccoli – 8 pieces
Crab sticks (imitation crab)
Onion – 1/2
Allulose or sugar
Pepper
Salt
Mayonnaise
Vinegar
Tools:
Cutting board
Knife
Pot
Mixing bowl
Plate
Crab sticks — sometimes called “crab meat sticks” or by the Korean brand name “Kkeurimi” — are super easy to find in Korea.
If you’re outside Korea, you can use Trans Ocean Crab Classic Imitation Crab, which is sold at Costco, or any similar product. You can also swap the crab sticks for bacon if you’d rather.
And if allulose isn’t something you have on hand, regular sugar works just as well.
First, you’ll need to rinse the frozen broccoli. Even though it comes pre-cut, it’s not pre-washed.
Put it in a large bowl, add about 3 tablespoons of vinegar, and let it soak for 1 to 2 minutes. This helps remove any impurities and gives it a good clean.
After soaking in the vinegar water, rinse the broccoli once under running water.
Next, blanch it briefly in boiling water. Don’t overdo this step — if you blanch it too long, the broccoli turns mushy and loses its texture.
Keep it under a minute; 30 seconds to 1 minute is the sweet spot.
If you want to take this dish up a notch, fresh broccoli instead of frozen will definitely taste better. I went with frozen this time just to keep things quick and easy for anyone following along.
Once the broccoli is blanched, rinse it under cold running water right away — you don’t want to work with hot broccoli, so let it cool down first.
After rinsing, drain it well in a colander and set it aside.
For the crab sticks, use about the same amount as the broccoli. Shred them into small pieces — they pull apart easily with your hands — and place the shredded pieces into a bowl.
If you’re using bacon instead, cut it into thin strips rather than big chunks.
Once the broccoli has drained well, add it right on top of the shredded crab sticks. Keeping the process simple and quick in one go is really the whole point here.
Use about half an onion, or a whole one if you’re a big onion fan. The key here is slicing it as thin as possible — since you’ll be eating it raw, thicker slices can taste pretty sharp and spicy.
If raw onion feels like a lot for you, slice it thin and soak it in cold water for about 2 minutes, then drain. That takes the edge off the sharp bite and makes it easier to eat.
After making this dish and tasting the final result, I actually thought apple could be a great swap for the onion too. Since mayonnaise can feel a little heavy, a bit of tart apple sounded like it would balance things out nicely.
If you want to try that, cut the apple into thin matchsticks about the thickness of a pen and roughly the length of your pinky finger, then toss it in the same way.
Now add the sliced onion into the bowl. At this point you’ve got the crab sticks, broccoli, and onion all layered together.
Since you’ll be adding the sauce and mixing everything right away, it helps to use a bowl that’s nice and wide. I personally use a set of stainless steel bowls in different sizes for cooking, and honestly, they’ve been a game changer.
Now let’s make the dressing. Just a note — one “spoon” here means a regular adult-sized tablespoon.
Start with 1 tablespoon of allulose or sugar. I’m adding everything into one bowl as I go.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt, or just eyeball the amount shown in the photo. I usually use sun-dried sea salt, but any regular salt from your kitchen will work fine.
Just steer clear of specialty salts like Himalayan pink salt, Maldon salt, or seasoned salt, since those can change the flavor a bit. Stick with a basic salt for this one.
Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar too. I used apple cider vinegar I had at home, but really, any vinegar should work fine here.
Add about 1 teaspoon of pepper. If you’re using a pepper grinder, about 3 turns should do it.
If you don’t have pepper on hand, feel free to skip it.
For the mayonnaise, any regular store-bought mayo works. I used a “half mayo” version, which has half the calories of regular mayo.
Add about 3 to 4 tablespoons. Once the mayo’s in, that’s it for the dressing — just give it a good stir so the salt and sugar fully dissolve.
Pour the finished dressing into the bowl with the broccoli, onion, and crab sticks. Put on some food-safe gloves and gently toss everything together.
Go easy when mixing — if you toss it too roughly, the ingredients can get mushy. Just fold everything together gently, and that’s it — the dish is done.
Transfer it to a plate, and you’re all set. My wife and kid tried it and said it was really good. Another side dish successfully made today.
In Korea, banchan (side dishes) usually aren’t made fresh for every single meal — instead, people tend to make a big batch that lasts several meals, sometimes even a couple of months if stored properly.
That’s just how Korean side dish culture works, since a typical meal includes several banchan alongside rice, and cooking all of them fresh every time just isn’t practical. So the usual approach is to batch-cook the sides and rotate out just the main dish each time.
This broccoli and crab stick salad should keep in the fridge for about 2 days — just portion out a little each time you eat. Hope you enjoy your meal today. Thanks for reading!