Crab
Perfect Boiled Dungeness
The baseline every crab meal starts from
- 25 min
- Easy
- Per crab
Ingredients
- Live Dungeness crab
- A big pot of water, salted like the sea (1/4 cup per gallon)
- Ice for a bath (if picking later)
- Melted butter and lemon
Method
- Bring the salted water to a hard rolling boil.
- Crab in headfirst; start timing when it returns to a boil.
- Boil 12–15 minutes for a typical 2 lb crab.
- Eat hot with butter, or ice-bath if picking for later.
- Clean (see the guide) and crack.
Tip. Seawater-salty water is the single biggest upgrade to boiled crab.
Start with how to clean a razor clam if your clams are still in the shell. Washington's daily limit is the first 15 you dig, so most recipes here are sized for one limit or less.
Dig them first.
DigTide tells you the minute a dig is approved, then shows the window to be on the sand.