Cleaning Crab

Cleaning crab is an important step to getting that crab on your plate. Whether you have a frozen whole crab or a live whole crab, Crab-O-Licious.com will show you how to clean that crab in no time at all. We have a video at the end for you to see it all come together. When we're done, you will be able to clean crab in one minute or less.

We will start, first, with cleaning hard shell crab, like dungeness crab, then we will clean soft shell crab.

First, if your whole crab is frozen, it will be hard to clean. You will want to thaw the crab out a bit first. You can do this by placing it whole in some cool water as illistrated in the picture below. We use our sink.

Next,working over the sink, let the water run a bit to help flush out the waste. Then, lift off the apron of the crabs belly, (the circular shell segment on a female's belly and the pointed section of a male's) and pull off the entire top shell. You can grasp it in the middle at near the eyes. Discard the shell.

Next, you want to pull out and discard the long, white-ish gills and spongey stomach of the crab. Now you can bend and snap off the claws. There is no need to keep them. There's no meat in there worth getting to.

Next, you can break the body in half, rinse the halves in water real well and you're done! If you would like to "see" how easy it is to clean crab, you can watch this video. We are demonstrating how to clean crab with a Dungeness Crab.

Cleaning Crab Visual With Dungeness Crab

How to Clean and Kill Soft Shell Crab

Now you should be ready to cook the crab legs, steam them and have a Crab-O-Licious meal!

Find soft shell crab recipes here!

If you have any other questions or problems about cleaning crab, feel free to contact Crab-O-Licious and we'll be glad to help you out!

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