How to cook stone crab claws

We love just about every type of seafood, and stone crab claws are near the top of our list of favorites. What’s not to love? The crabmeat from stone crab claws is almost lobster-like in flavor, but the flesh isn’t as tough as lobster meat usually is. I think catching stone crabs is almost as enjoyable as eating the claws! When we visit the Gulf of Mexico, we always set out a trap or two, and the grandkids absolutely love crabbing for stone crabs and blue crabs. Oftentimes, our crab traps will produce a “mixed bag” of stone crabs and blue crabs, resulting in a crab feast for the family. If you’re interested in learning how to catch stone crabs or how to catch blue crabs, I have posts on this site that address those topics.

Okay, so after you’ve caught some stone crabs and removed the largest claw from each crab, what do you do with the stone crab claws? How to cook stone crab claws? Cooking stone crab claws isn’t difficult, but you want to do it as quickly as you can. This will help keep the crabmeat from adhering to the inside of the hard shell.

For three pounds of stone crab claws, bring about a gallon of water to a boil. Add about 2/3 cup sea salt. You might also want to add a mesh bag of crab or shrimp boil, or you can add your own herbs and spices, instead. For example, you might want to include cayenne, lemon pepper, black pepper, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, mustard seed, and/or coriander. Actually, many cooks prefer their stone crab claws to be cooked in plain saltwater. The choice is up to you.

Once the water comes to a full boil, add the stone crab claws. Once the pot returns to the boiling pot, place the lid on and reduce the stove burner to medium. The stone crab claws will need to cook for an additional 8-10 minutes, depending on the size of the claws. You might want to test the largest claw to make sure the crabmeat is white, flaky, and opaque – signifying that the crabs are done.

Once the crabs are done, remove them from the pot immediately and place them in a colander in your sink. Rinse the stone crab claws with cold water. Actually, I sometimes cover mine in crushed ice, too. This makes the crabmeat somewhat easier to remove from the shell because the cold temperature makes the meat contract some.

If you buy stone crab claws from the market, they’ve already been cooked, so they can be eaten as-is, unless you prefer warm or hot stone crab claws, or unless the claws are frozen. In that case, the claws should be heated in very hot – but not boiling – water, until they reach the desired temperature. Be careful, however, not to overcook your stone crab claws!

Stone Crabs: Catch Your Own!

I’ve always enjoyed eating Florida stone crabs – well, the claws, at least. If you’ve ever priced stone crab claws, you know they don’t come cheap. The solution? Catch your own stone crabs and harvest your own stone crab claws! When we’re in Florida during stone crab season – October 15 through May 15, we like to set out a trap for stone crabs, and we always catch blue crabs in the trap, too.

Stone crabs, Menippe mercenaria, can be found in the Atlantic from Connecticut southward, including much of the Caribbean. The stone crab is brownish-gray with grey spots, and most specimens have black claw tips. From my experience with crabbing, stone crabs are more prevalent in the Gulf of Mexico. We’ve caught stone crabs on the Atlantic coasts of Florida and Georgia, but never as many as we’ve caught in the Gulf.

I’ve experimented with several crab baits with which to load my trap, including fresh fish, smelly fish, lean fish, oily fish, cooked chicken, and raw chicken. This could be entirely coincidental, but it seems to me that the stone crabs are pickier about what they eat than the blue crabs are. We’ve caught tons of blue crabs on just about everything imaginable. Believe it or not, we once made a big haul of blue crabs with an empty cigarette pack that was knocked out of the boat by an angry shark.

The last time we went crabbing in Florida, we racked up on blue crabs, using dead pinfish as bait. We didn’t catch a single stone crab, however, until we switched to chicken necks. I thought this was just a coincidence, so I repeated the experiment several times. I always got the same results: the blue crabs would be attracted to any type of flesh we put in the trap, but the stone crabs would enter the trap only for the chicken necks. Maybe we were just in a community of finicky stone crabs! Of course, I gave them what they wanted.

The bodies of stone crabs have little meat on them, but the claws can get big and meaty. Stone crabs grow two claws: a larger one and a smaller one. The large claw is called the “crusher,” while the smaller claw is called the “pincher” or the “pincer.” The legal size is 2 ¾ inches, measured from the tip of the claw half that doesn’t move to the first joint of the claw arm. In Florida, both claws can be harvested as long as they’re of legal size, but I don’t think this is a good practice. When you remove both claws and return the live stone crab to the water, it doesn’t have any way to defend itself. We prefer removing the largest claw and return the crabs to the water. These one-armed crabs will have almost a 75% chance of surviving. If both claws are removed, the stone crab will have about a 50% chance of surviving.

Catching stone crabs isn’t difficult if you use a wire mesh trap loaded with chicken necks. Slow moving water is best. Stone crabs love oysters, so if you can place the trap near oyster beds, you’ll most likely have good luck. Stone crabs also like rocks, manmade structures, and grass beds. Find a likely area and drop the baited trap in the water, letting it sink to the bottom. Tie off the rope, and wait. We usually check our traps ever couple of hours, except when we leave them out overnight. Handle the stone crabs carefully! Their claws are powerful and can inflict some real damage. To see how to properly remove stone crab claws, watch the accompanying video.