Louis Kemp Crab Delights Review
The other big name in the American refrigerated case — sweeter and softer than its rivals, which is either its charm or its flaw depending on what you're cooking.
The short version: Crab Delights is a competent supermarket surimi that leans hard into sweetness. In a mayo-dressed salad or a bubbling dip, that sweetness reads as richness and works well. Straight from the package, or anywhere the crab has to carry the dish alone, it can taste closer to candy than to crab — and unlike its main rival, it contains wheat, taking it off the table for gluten-free households.
The brand behind the label
Louis Kemp is one of the founding names of American surimi — the Duluth, Minnesota company helped bring kanikama technology from Japan to the US market in the early 1980s, at the start of the surimi boom. The brand has changed corporate hands several times since and now sits in the Trident Seafoods family, but the product formula has stayed recognizably consistent: Alaska pollock surimi, water, starch (including wheat), sugar, egg whites, and crab flavoring, in the familiar flake, chunk, and leg styles.
Taste and texture
Two things stand out side by side against other brands. First, sugar: Crab Delights is the sweetest of the mainstream American surimi lines, noticeable on the first bite. Second, softness: the texture is tender to the point of pillowy, with strands that mash more readily than they pull apart. Neither is a defect in the right dish — the sweetness echoes real crab's own sweetness once it's cut with lemon or vinegar, and the soft texture disappears happily into creamy bindings. But there's no mistaking it for crab leg meat, and hot preparations push it toward mushy faster than firmer brands.
Where it works best
- Deli seafood salad — arguably its ideal home; the acid in the dressing balances the sugar.
- Hot crab dip and crab rangoon, where cream cheese does the structural work.
- Kani salad, if you dial the sriracha up a notch to offset the sweetness.
Where it struggles: sushi rolls (too soft to slice cleanly), tempura (goes limp inside the shell), and any sauté where it's tossed around a hot pan.
Nutrition check
The numbers track the category norms — roughly 81 calories, 6–8 g protein, and about 13 g of carbohydrate per 3 oz serving, with sodium in the typical 500–800 mg band — but the sweetness is a useful reminder that surimi is a processed product with added sugar and starch, not a lean fish fillet. If you're weighing it against real crab or tracking carbs closely, the full breakdown is in our nutrition guide.
How it compares
The head-to-head that matters is Trans-Ocean Crab Classic: Crab Classic is less sweet, slightly firmer, and gluten-free, which makes it our default between the two — though Crab Delights is often a little cheaper and some households genuinely prefer its dessert-adjacent profile. Against Japanese imports like Osaki or Kibun there's no contest on texture, but also no contest on convenience — Crab Delights is refrigerated, ubiquitous, and never needs thawing. The budget freezer alternative, Shirakiku, splits the difference at a similar price.
Verdict
Buy it for: creamy, dressed, and baked dishes; shoppers whose store doesn't carry Trans-Ocean; anyone who likes their surimi on the sweet side.
Skip it for: gluten-free needs, sushi, tempura, and dishes where the crab flavor stands alone.
A reliable second place in the American refrigerated case — worth buying, rarely worth seeking out.
Check Louis Kemp Crab Delights on Amazon →
Standard storage rules apply — 3–4 days refrigerated once opened — and the full brand roundup shows where it lands in the rankings.
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