How to cook jonah crab

Large Jonahs make a fine cracked-crab entrée served with butter, lemon and herbs. To cook live crabs, place in boiling salted or seawater and cook for about 6 minutes per pound. When the crab has cooled, meat can be extracted from the legs and body.

Jonah crab has a sweet taste and though it is not as meaty as the West Coast Dungeness crab, it is fine eating. The claws can be served steamed and served chilled over ice for an appetizer and the meat makes an excellent crab cake, which in New England is often a part of a sandwich served with mayonnaise.

To cook live crabs, place in boiling salted or seawater and cook for about 6 minutes per pound. When the crab has cooled, meat can be extracted from the legs and body.

Chilled as an appetizer

When you order Jonah crab claws, they’ll come frozen and pre-cooked — which is why our first preparation method is literally…do nothing. Yep, you read that right. Simply defrost your crab claws and enjoy chilled, just like you would a shrimp cocktail.

Grill the claws for several minutes.

The claws should cook through in five minutes or less. A whole crab can be cooked on the grill in under ten minutes, but Jonah claws are small and will cook faster than that. Watch for them to turn bright red.

If you are able to get fresh crab claws, you will need to boil them for 8 to 10 minutes until they turn a bright orange color. Fresh crab claws will need to be steamed for around 15 minutes.

Do not overcook crab legs. They are already fully cooked and it’s just a matter of heating them through for a maximum of 4 minutes, or until hot to the touch. Over cooking the crab, and letting it sit too long in the water causes the meat to turn yellowish in colour and give it a strong fishy odour.

Once the water is boiling, carefully place your crabs in the water and cook for about 10-20 minutes. The crabs are ready when they turn orange and start to float. Remove the crabs from the water and let them cool down enough to remove the meat without burning yourself.

Steaming crab legs is very similar to boiling them. Some people say that steaming is actually better because it allows all of the crab flavor to stay within the shell instead of leaking out into the cooking water.

Bring an inch of salted water to a boil in a large pot. Put the crabs in a steamer basket or insert or simply pile them into the pot and let the bottom crabs boil slightly and act as a platform for the other crabs to steam. Cover and cook 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of the crabs.

Place a steam basket at the bottom of a large stockpot with 1 cup of water. Add as many crab legs as your pot will accommodate and still close the lid tightly. Bring the water to a boil then cover and steam cook until fragrant and steaming hot (about 5 minutes for thawed or 10 minutes for frozen crab legs).