How To Cook a Crab — And Actually Make It Taste Good

Crab is not exactly budget-friendly seafood, so experimenting and ruining it is completely off the table. While you may have had imitation crab in a sushi roll, real crab is much different – it has a rich flavor with sweet undertones. You can prepare a variety of tasty cuisines, both mains, and sides with it. 

The interesting part? There may be multiple ways of cooking a crab, but there only are a few secrets to making a healthy recipe that retains its true flavor. If you don’t want to diminish the flavor of the crab while making it, keep reading. We’ve got your back!

7 Ingredients to Use for Cooking Crabs

Whether you’re planning to boil, roast, grill, or steam your crabs, try a combination of the following ingredients in your recipe and we bet you’ll come back for more.

1. Lemon

The heart of any fried seafood is lemon. Let the acidity sink into your crab meat, regardless of how you’re cooking it.

2. Dipping sauce

A dipping sauce may make or break your crab, so pick wisely. While it’s an excellent opportunity to complement the flavors of your crab, it can also overpower or completely kill the original flavors.

3. Fennel

Fennel is a herb that can add flavor to your crab. You may go for other herbs too for a nice aroma and to make them richer in taste.

4. Veggies

You can throw in some red potatoes, capsicum, carrot, and other veggies in a skillet. Drizzle them with lemon juice and pepper and serve the veggies on the side for turning your crab dinner into a complete meal.

5. Pepper and spices

It’s only too much pepper if it starts to burn! Everything before that is good, given that the spices make your crab taste good. If you don’t want to make the recipe complex, just go with black pepper, some salt, and vinegar.

6. Butter

When it comes to grilling and frying, you can never go wrong with butter. Lemon, butter, salt and pepper are usually the simplest ingredients to help elevate the flavor of seafood.

7. Cream cheese

Thick cream cheese can really lighten up your buttery crabs. You can make a lemony, creamy dip with cream cheese to complement your crab dish.

4 Ways to Make Exquisite Crab at Home

Steamed crabs

The best thing you can do to your crabs is to retain their flavor by preventing them from seeping in water for too long or burning them away with excessive grilling. You can do this by getting a nice pot for crabs that is designed to retain original flavors.

• Get a large, safe-to-use crab pot and pour in some salted water.
• Let the water boil, put the crabs in a steamer basket and let the steam do its job at low heat.
• Cover and cook them for about 20-30 minutes before taking them out. Clean them and serve with lemon, butter, pepper, and salt. Microwaving for 1-2 minutes may just be the taste hack we were earlier referring to.

Boil it:

Get yourself a nice crab pot or a boiling pot that can easily fit in your crabs, and then just let the good ol’ magic of boiling do its job.

• Put the crabs into a crab pot filled with water.
• Let them all boil for 10-15 minutes until they start to float.
• Take them out, clean them, and dress them up nicely with one of the aforementioned ingredients before serving.

Grill them:

If you want to grill crabs, you’ll need to clean them first. Boil them and clean them when they’re done halfway.

• Dress them up in some pepper, vinegar, salt, and herbs. Let them sit for a good 10-15 minutes before throwing them up on a grill.
• Add some lemon zest while grilling and serve with dipping sauce when done.

Roast em’ : 

• Quickly boil the crabs and clean them. 
• Throw them in the oven with some melted butter, herbs, and spices.
• Let the crabs cook until they’re browned.
• Take them out and dress them up in cream cheese. Heat them for a few more minutes and serve.