Description
This simple method for baking snow crab legs delivers tender, sweet meat and requires just minutes of hands-on time. Served with garlicky lemon butter, it's an impressive but effortless seafood dinner.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 1 1/2 pounds snow crab legs, thawed
- 5 tablespoons butter
- 1 garlic clove, lightly crushed
- 2-3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- Kosher salt, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Arrange thawed crab legs on a large sheet pan or shallow baking pan in a single layer. Once the oven comes up to temperature, bake the snow crab legs for 8-12 minutes. (Remember the crab legs are already cooked, so we are using this time in the oven to evaporate the water inside the legs and re-heat the meat, without drying them out. You'll know the crab is ready when it is fragrant and the shells are very warm to the touch. Depending on the size of the legs, you may need to bake a few minutes longer.)
- While the crab is baking, make your lemon butter sauce. Add butter and a lightly crushed garlic clove to a small saucepan. Melt the butter and steep the garlic clove over medium heat for 4-5 minutes.
- Add two teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice to the melted butter. Taste and add more lemon juice or a pinch of salt, to taste. Remove the crushed garlic clove and keep the butter over low heat until ready to serve.
- When the crab is finished baking, transfer to a serving platter. Serve with lemon wedges, lemon garlic butter and garnish with chives or parsley.
Notes
- Storing and Reheating: I like to remove the meat from leftover crab legs while they're still warm and refrigerate it separately. This makes it easy to add to salads or pasta dishes without reheating.
- Baking Time: If your crab legs are very large, you may need to extend baking time by 3-5 minutes.
- Save the Shells! The shells make excellent seafood stock - just rinse, freeze, and add to your next batch of stock.
- Prep Time: 3
- Cook Time: 12
- Category: Easy Recipes
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/2
- Calories: 649
- Sugar: 0.2 g
- Sodium: 2508.6 mg
- Fat: 33.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 0.9 g
- Protein: 81.1 g
- Cholesterol: 317.7 mg