Soft Shell Crabs

What’s all the Buzz about a Blue Crab Soft Shell?

Many crab enthusiasts sauté crab cakes to a golden brown, just savoring that blue crab meat in an easy to eat cake. For the crab-eating professionals out there, soft shells give another choice for avoiding the swinging mallet, burning fingers and loads of time. Of course, we advocate those huge feasts, but we know you like crab feasting variety!

Here’s the lowdown: Our crew catch blue crabs in the stage of shedding their hard shell and growing a new one. Better known as molting, this occurrence gives the chef or home cook a serious benefit, serving a beer-battered blue crab in a roll to battle the popularity of a jumbo lump crab cake sandwich. Not so fast though, let our crew perform the preparatory steps for the fest. They snip off the faces, scrape out the gills and voilà, a soft shell ready to cook.

Prepare yourself for the deliciousness. Soft shells boast a salty-sweet flavor with a tender meat and ever-so-slight crunch from the new shell’s beginnings. Many crab pros report a soft shell exhibits a more buttery, robust flavor from the crab mustard left in the crab. Plan that perfect dinner with a beer batter and egg/milk mixture to get started. Yes, dry, wet, dry will work with oil at 370°F. Become a crab eating pro with a fresh catch of soft shells!