Becoming this lofty, flavorful crab cake sandwich is the ultimate dream for any young seafood puck. If you were a crispy Maryland-style crab cake, cradled between swooshes of Old Bay–spiked tartar sauce and squished cozily inside a toasted brioche bun, you’d be pretty happy too.

Various styles of prepared crab meat are available refrigerated or frozen in the seafood section of most grocery stores; whatever you find within your budget (jumbo lump crabmeat, claw meat, blue crab, etc.) will work. We swapped in panko breadcrumbs for the usual Italian-style ones, which keeps the crab cakes from getting dense or stodgy. We also kept the seasoning light to keep the focus on the sweet crabmeat, but if you’re craving heat, a few dashes of hot sauce wouldn’t hurt anything.

To cut down on prep time, we relied on precut slaw mix (though you can, of course, make your own coleslaw if desired). Assemble the slaw before you start working on the crab so that the cabbage has time to soften before piling onto the sandwiches. Apple cider vinegar brings the tang to this slaw, but if you’ve got a lemon, you can grate the lemon zest into the crab cakes and use the lemon juice in the slaw for an extra hit of brightness.