What Should You Make With Canned Crab?

I envy people who have access to fresh crab pretty much year round. In Los Angeles, we’re too far south to be able to fish Dungeness crab, so the crab that’s available is wildly expensive and has traveled great lengths. It’s not like Seattle, which is overflowing with crustaceans, or the Chesapeake Bay with its abundance of blue crab. Or Bangkok, where I spent my childhood summers feasting on salty mud crabs.

When I can’t get my hands on a whole crab, I turn to the pasteurized tinned stuff. Sure, it’s not as fun as carefully extracting meat from a crab’s long legs or slurping up the crab mustard, but in times of desperation, a jar of crab meat will do. Plus, it requires much less effort (and fewer shells in your teeth, if I’m being honest) and opens up a world of possibilities.

So, what should you make with canned crab?

Tinned fishis having such a big renaissance — why shouldn’t tinned crab also be a part of the conversation? But unlike sardines in tomato sauce or lemon caper anchovies, tinned crab isn’t the best option to just toss on a cracker and eat straight. “I wouldn’t necessarily want it at a sushi restaurant,” says Brandon Boudet, the chef and co-owner ofLittle Dom’s Seafoodin Carpinteria, California. “But it’s a product that I’ve used throughout the years, especially being on the West Coast where you don’t get blue crab and your crab options are very expensive.”

At Little Dom’s Seafood, Boudet has a few uses for tinned crab. He adds it to seafood gumbo and seafood pot pie, and folds it into a lemon mascarpone pappardelle. At Little Dom’s Seafood’s sister restaurant in Los Angeles — also calledLittle Dom’s— Boudet puts tinned crab on bruschetta with a spicy Calabrian chile sauce. Generally, he’ll add it anywhere it can be a supporting player to other flavors, and where its texture isn’t the highlight of the dish.

The most obvious use for tinned crab is probably crab cakes, where it’s ideal because no one has the time to break down enough crab meat for a whole cake. “I use tinned crab to make my Singaporean black pepper crab cakes,” says Jonathan Kung, the author and recipe developer behindKung Food.Large chunk tinned crab is perfect for the dish, where it’s “bound by eggs and mayo with added spices and shallots, covered in panko, fried, and served with a traditional Singaporean black pepper sauce,” Kung explains.

My own grandma’s go-to move with tinned crab was to fold it into fried rice or a Thai-style omelet, served with a spicy lime and fish sauce dressing. Eggs also come to mind for Anthony Inn, the executive chef atKin Ginin New York City. “I whisk together two parts chicken stock and one part eggs, gently combining the mixture with canned crab meat,” he explains. He then seasons the eggs with soy sauce and kosher salt before microwaving the mixture until it becomes a silky egg and crab custard. “You can substitute the chicken stock with soy milk,” he advises, “which would then turn this dish into a steamed egg tofu.”

The main takeaway from using tinned crab is to mix it with other components for different textures and flavors, which allows the brininess of the crab to shine while overshadowing the meat’s potential stringiness. Bold flavors, like Calabrian chiles and soy sauce, can also tame any fishiness the crab may have.

How long does canned crab keep after it’s opened? And how do I store it?

You may notice that a tin of crab can have an expiration date far into the future. Like tinned fish, an unopened jar of crab meat is pasteurized and therefore has an extended shelf life. Unlike tinned fish, tinned crab needs to be kept refrigerated. The delicate flavor and texture of crab means that it’s pasteurized at lower temperatures, and for less time, than fish. This is why, when shopping for tinned crab, you’ll almost always find it in a refrigerated section of the grocery store.

Once it’s opened, tinned crab, like fresh crab, has a limited shelf life. “You’llknowwhen it’s bad,” Boudet says. “You can get two to three days out of it, but I’d use it pretty immediately.” Boudet also suggests freezing the crab if you’re going to use it in a cooked application where the texture doesn’t matter as much, like in crab cakes or soup.

What should you look out for when buying canned crab?

It’s important to consider the location of where the crab comes from, just as it is if you’re sourcing any seafood product. For cold-water specimens like Dungeness and snow crabs, make sure the crabs are coming from regions like Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. For blue crabs, look for tins from Maryland and Delaware.

Also consider what recipe you’re using the crab meat for. There are different types of crab meat to choose from, like lump, claw, and special. Lump refers to the larger pieces of flesh, so if you’re presenting a dish where the crab is the star, like crab cocktail, this is the tin to use. Special meat is more shredded, making it the perfect choice for crab salad and crab cakes. Finally, claw meat has a very concentrated crab flavor, which makes it ideal for dishes with other strong flavors, such as gumbo orcrab dip.