shellfish
Crab
Crab legs are cooked and frozen aboard the boat, usually within hours of coming up. What you do at home is warm them through — four to six minutes of steam from thawed. Cook them like raw shellfish and the meat turns stringy and pulls away from the shell.
In one line
It's already cooked. Everything you do to it after is reheating.
Buy it if
You want the least work of any shellfish and you're willing to pay for the shell you throw away.
It was cooked before you bought it. Crab spoils fast once it dies, so boats cook and freeze the legs at sea. That is why crab is one of the few proteins where frozen is the honest premium product and "fresh" at a landlocked counter usually means thawed. Your job is to warm it, not cook it.
"Snow crab" is two different animals. Chionoecetes opilio is the smaller, more common one; C. bairdi — the tanner — is noticeably bigger and sells for more. Both go to market as snow crab, which explains price gaps that otherwise look arbitrary.
The price is a stock story, not an inflation story. The Bering Sea snow crab fishery was closed outright for the 2022–23 and 2023–24 seasons after surveys showed billions of crabs had vanished. That closure is most of what you are paying for.
Thaw it overnight in the fridge. Running water pulls flavour straight out through the cut ends of the shell, and a fast thaw makes the meat watery.
Where it comes from on the animal
| Species | shellfish |
|---|---|
| Subprimal | legs, clusters, and picked meat |
What else it’s called
How to cook Crab
| Best methods | Steam Boil Broil Grill |
|---|---|
| Skip | Deep fry |
| Cook to | Hot through, no more. Four to six minutes of steam from thawed; a couple of minutes longer for thick king legs. |
Common questions
Do I need to cook crab legs?
No — they were cooked at sea. You are reheating. Steam thawed legs four to six minutes, until they are hot in the thickest part. Longer and the meat goes stringy and shrinks away from the shell, which is what makes crab hard to pick.
King, snow or Dungeness — what's the difference?
King has the thickest legs and the biggest chunks of meat, and costs the most. Snow is sweeter and finer-textured in narrower legs. Dungeness is a whole-body crab — more work, more meat per dollar, and the only one of the three with much body meat worth picking.
Why is crab so expensive right now?
The Bering Sea snow crab fishery closed completely for the 2022–23 and 2023–24 seasons after the stock collapsed. Supply has not recovered to what it was, and king crab quotas have been cut in the same period.
What's the best way to thaw crab legs?
Overnight in the refrigerator, in a pan to catch drips. Thawing under running water washes flavour out of the exposed meat at the cut ends and leaves the texture waterlogged. If you're short on time, steam them straight from frozen and add a few minutes.
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