King Crab Legs Cooking Time – Like baked halibut, light lobster and filet mignon, crab legs are often associated with dinner at a fancy restaurant. And although they are expensive even in the store, cooking crab legs at home is surprisingly easy
It’s still cheaper than eating out. This crab legs recipe covers the best ways to cook crab legs – boiling, steaming, baking, roasting and grilling. I will go over the crab selection process, the pros/cons and cooking times of each method, how to eat crab legs and more.
King Crab Legs Cooking Time
Once you learn how to cook crab legs yourself, you may never want to order them from a restaurant again. This is one of my favorite seafood recipes for special occasions!
How To Cook Crab Legs For A Special Weeknight Dinner
If you find yourself with leftover crab after cooking crab meat at home, use it to make crab cakes, butter crab stuffed salmon, cold chunky crab dip or hot crab dip , or add some to a delicious lobster bisque for even more flavor.
There are five ways to make this crab legs recipe, and I’ll show you how to cook each of them:
As for the type of cancer, choosing the best cancer legs is quite simple, because there really aren’t that many options. Availability often varies by region, so grab whatever you can find! But in case you have options, here’s an overview of the most common types of cancer to help you decide:
FYI: Most crab legs at the grocery store or fish store are actually pre-cooked and frozen, so crab leg recipes are basically reheating them from the new. Sometimes the legs are sold frozen, and sometimes they are already thawed.
Grilled Crab Legs
Tip: You can tell if the crab legs are pre-cooked by looking at their color. If they are red or orange then they are pre-cooked; If they are gray or brown, they are raw.
Tip: If you don’t have a steam basket, a colander often works. It just needs to be heat safe, fit in your pot or dutch oven, and have feet to stand on water.
Tip: A good rule of thumb is to brush a tablespoon of butter for every 1/2 pound of crab legs. This applies to roasting, baking and grilling methods.
If your crab legs are still frozen, boiling or steaming are the best methods to use and you can make them from the freezer. Alternatively, you can light crab legs in the refrigerator overnight.
Instant Pot Crab Legs
This is the set I have, which has both a cracker and a fork. Check out my service tips below.
Store any leftovers from this crab legs recipe in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.
Yes, technically you can freeze crab legs, but remember that if you bought them and cooked them, then they were probably pre-cooked, frozen once at the store or fish shop, then thawed (or at home or in the store) and were cooked again at home.
Freeze them again, at which point the flavor and texture are likely to be affected. If possible, enjoy them fresh and avoid refreezing.
How To Cook Crab Legs (boiled, Steamed, And Broiled)
You can reheat crab legs using any of the above methods: boil, steam, bake, broil or grill. It is not recommended to use crab legs in the microwave.
Learn how to cook crab legs perfectly every time – buttery, sweet and tender! This easy crab legs recipe includes 5 different cooking methods, tips and times.
Share your recipe photo by tagging @ and # on Instagram, or in our Facebook Support Group too – I’d love to see it!
Nutrition facts are provided as a courtesy. Do you have questions about the calculations or why you got a different result? Please see our nutrition policy.
How To Cook Crab Legs
© Copyright Maya Krampf for Healthy Yum. Please do not take screenshots or copy/paste recipes on social networks or websites. We would appreciate it if you would share a link to an image instead. 🙂 This classic Alaskan king crab recipe is easy to make with a quick stir fry. Serve with melted butter for dipping.
Hank has written five cookbooks, the most recent in 2021. His website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook was awarded Best Food Blog by the James Beard Foundation in 2013.
One of my earliest memories as a child was eating piles of Alaskan king crab legs in restaurants. Drizzled with lots of melted butter and served with a lemon wedge that I rarely used, it was such a pleasure to peel big chunks of rich, juicy crabmeat from those huge legs.
I grew up in New Jersey, where the much smaller blue crab rules. As a child, the idea of giant crabs up to 10 meters long roaming the ocean floor was exciting and a little scary. Eating these crabs was like traveling to another world.
Baked Crab Legs
Another world then. Our family was not very wealthy, and I never remember the king crab even being in the same class as the Maine lobster. King crab was what I got when lobster was too expensive.
If you look at the history of king crab fishing in Alaska, you will know why. At exactly the same time I was enjoying mountains of king crabs, the fishery reached a high point of unsustainability. In 1981, fishermen collected 130 million pounds of kings. Two years later the fishing collapsed.
It took years, but crab stocks recovered. Since then, king crab has been sustainably fished throughout Alaska. And while it will never come cheap, it is still one of the world’s greatest luxury foods.
King crab is rich, soft and crunchy, more reminiscent of a lobster than a crab. It’s also easy to flesh and fill the shells, giving you a good amount of meat per pound — unlike most other crabs.
Oven Crab Legs
Almost all king crabs are pre-cooked. It should be, to keep it fresh. Alaskan king crab is cooked and frozen right in the port. If they were not, the giant crabs would die and perish in a few hours. This means that as a cook, you are actually reheating a king crab, not actually cooking it. So be kind. I prefer to steam for 5 minutes and call it a day. The king crab really doesn’t need anything else.
King crab is best served plain. Doing too much would be like stuffing a burrito with caviar. Steam, grill or even microwave, then choose a supporting player and enjoy. The classic is, was and always will be melted butter and lemon. It’s a classic for a reason.
Buying wild-caught red king crabs in the US (especially in Alaska) is a good option, as they are sustainably caught under strict government guidelines. You can buy directly from the fishery itself or look for wild caught or sustainably farmed labels in the store.
*% Daily Value (DV) tells you how much of a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to the daily diet. 2,000 calories per day is used for general nutritional advice.
King Crab Legs Recipe
Nutritional information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate. In cases where multiple ingredient alternatives are given, the first list is calculated for nutrition. Garnishes and optional ingredients are not included. What’s American Cooking » Cooking Articles » Seafood and Fish Recipe Index » Crabs » Perfect King Crab Legs Recipe
King crab legs, with their sweet meat, are ideal for fun and special occasions with your family or friends.
King crab legs are already cooked when you buy them or cooked on the fishing boats or just after they fall to the ground to keep them fresh (the crab is caught, cooked and then blast frozen to preserve the flavor his freshness). Because of this, King Crab only needs to be heated enough before eating. Remember, if you didn’t buy a live king crab, the king crab legs are already cooked.
Fresh King Crab Legs: Only if you live near a crab community, you will have fresh and raw crab legs.
Blackstone Crab Scampi
Frozen King crab legs: It is recommended that the crab legs thaw overnight in your refrigerator. If you are in a big hurry, the king crab can be thawed under cold running water to speed it up. If you put them on a rack in an airtight container, they may drain as they thaw.
Storage: Thawed crab legs can be refrigerated for up to two days, but you really should cook them as soon as they thaw if possible.
Cooking crab is usually just a matter of using your preferred heating method. There are a variety of ways to heat king crab. Steaming, microwave oven and baking are among the most common. With these methods, king crab only takes 4 to 10 minutes to reheat:
Making the steam: Let the water in the bottom of the steamer boil, then add the crab legs to the steamer and cover. Crabs are hot when you can smell them. I also pick one up with tweezers and touch the fleshy part just to make sure it’s really hot. The best way to get to the meat is to use scissors. I use kitchen shears that come with knife sets but you can buy one at any kitchen supply store on its own. Just read cancer in the obvious places