Food - Drink
What Is Canned Crab And How Is It Best Used?
By RYAN CASHMAN
The canned fish aisle at the grocery store holds a wide variety of tasty and convenient seafood, including tuna, salmon, sardines, anchovies, clams, and even crab. Though crab is usually seen as a pricier type of seafood that is best eaten fresh, canned crab can be just as delicious, not to mention it's more affordable and lasts longer.
To make canned crab, crabs are steamed, their meat is removed and inspected for quality and size, then it's chilled, pasteurized with salts and citric acids, and vacuum-sealed in cans. All parts of the crab (jumbo lump, lump, backfin, and claw) can be canned individually or mixed together, so you have a few options at the store.
You can buy a mix of crab meat, which is often made up of white meat, while claw meat is almost always canned on its own because of its strong flavor. Most canned crab has a saltier, more acidic flavor because of preservatives, though some brands taste fresher, which makes them more suitable for dishes where crab is the star.
Canned crab works wonderfully in crab cakes, pasta salad, crab salad, and salsa, especially if you have pure white meat with minimal preservatives. If you have canned claw meat, use it in a recipe for a bisque or seafood stew, since the strongly-flavored claw meat will stand up best to the heavy, creamy flavors in your soup.