How To Boil Crab Legs For A Special Dinner Any Night

Boil Crab

Boiling crab legs makes creating a special-occasion meal a cinch! If you know how to boil water, you basically already know how to cook crab legs. So we’ll show you how to get the meat out of the legs and also how to cook frozen crab legs.

We know there can be sticker shock when buying crab legs, so reserve this fancy entrée for special nights or special guests, and use our tips to know how long to boil crab legs so they’re cooked to perfection. Since they are almost always precooked, simply boil crab legs to warm them through, then serve them with melted butter.

Boiling Crab Legs

Technically, the first step in how to make snow crab legs is to thaw them when you don’t have fresh crab legs available (yay for you if you can get them fresh!). The best way to thaw frozen crab legs is to cover them in the refrigerator overnight. If space or time is an issue, you can also put the frozen legs in a colander in a sink and run cool water over them to thaw quickly.

Thawed (and fresh) crab legs can be steamed, grilled, and heated in the microwave, but boiling is one of the best ways to cook crab legs and one method we recommended in the Better Homes & Gardens Test Kitchen. The water gets into the shells, keeps the meat moist, and helps the meat heat through quickly. Here’s what to do along with the answer to the pressing question: How long do you boil crab legs?

Step 1: Fill a large pot half to two-thirds full of cold tap water. Add 1 tablespoon salt; bring the water to boiling.

Step 2: Add four 4- to 8-ounce crab legs to the boiling water, bending and tucking the legs so as much as possible is covered in water. Return the water to boiling.

Step 3: Cook the legs, uncovered, 4 to 5 minutes or until heated through, adjusting occasionally with long tongs to make sure they heat evenly.

Step 4: Using the long tongs, remove the legs from the water. If desired, rinse legs; drain well.

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That’s all there is to it! You now know how to boil crab legs! Getting the meat out is the real task.

Removing the Crabmeat

Step 1: Twist at the joint and/or cut the shell

Cool cooked crab legs until easy to handle. You may want to use a clean kitchen cloth when handling since the legs have nodules that can be sharp. Twist the legs at the joint. Often you can pull the meat from the shell as you twist.

Or use kitchen kitchen shears to cut through the shell to access the crab meat. If you tried twisting and pulling the meat out but still see some left, grab the shears! You don’t want to leave any crab meat behind.

Step 2: Harvesting the meat

For split legs, pull apart the shell with your fingers. Use a small seafood fork to remove the meat from the legs and claws.

Step 3: Serving Crab Legs

When serving, keep things simple, and let the crab legs star. You can go to all the effort of twisting, cutting, and separating crab legs for your guests or serve ’em up right out of the pot and let guests earn their fancy meal.

If the crab legs are not pre-split, have kitchen shears available for splitting, and give each person a small seafood fork for getting the crab meat out of the shells. Favorite accompaniments for crab legs are lemon wedges and small bowls of melted butter for dipping. Figure about 1 tablespoon butter per 4 ounces of crab meat. Get fancy with your butter by adding fresh herbs as we did in our Steamed Crab Legs recipe.