Boiled Crabs
Submitted by vickidinardi
Cajun-style crab boil with live blue crabs, corn on the cob, red potatoes, and tri-color peppers. A one-pot Southern seafood feast ready in 30 minutes that serves 4.
YIELD
4 servingsPREP
20 minCOOK
10 minREADY
30 minIf you’ve ever spread newspaper across a table and dumped a steaming pile of crabs, corn, and potatoes right in the middle, you know exactly what this recipe is about. This is a Cajun crab boil, y’all, and it’s pure summertime magic.
Live blue crabs go into a big stockpot with quartered lemons, red new potatoes, fresh corn, onions, and a rainbow of diced bell peppers. The whole pot gets a generous cup of salt to season everything from the inside out.
The secret move here is letting everything sit covered for 10 minutes after you kill the heat. That resting time lets the crabs absorb all those bright, briny flavors.
Pro Tips
- Make sure your crabs are alive and feisty before they go in the pot. Listless crabs may not be fresh enough to eat.
- Don’t skip the lemons. They cut through the richness of the crab and perfume the whole pot.
- Serve on a table covered in brown paper or newspaper with melted butter, hot sauce, and cold beer on the side. That’s the only proper way.
- If blue crabs aren’t available in your area, substitute any small to medium fresh crabs.
Ingredients
Directions
Fill a large (10-quart) stockpot one-third full with water.
Add the lemons, potatoes, corn, onions, salt, and peppers.
Cover and bring to a boil over high heat.
Let boil for 10 minutes.
Add the crabs, (if blue crabs are not available, substitute other small to medium crabs), cover, and return to boil.
Once steam starts to escape from under the cover, let cook for 15 minutes.
Turn off the heat and let sit, covered, for 10 minutes more.
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