Where to get Crabs Cooked?

Living in the Northwest, we love fresh shellfish, and cooking Dungeness crab is a regular for us! We love having a lifestyle with our family of cracking and eating crab more times than we can count.

Dungeness crab is incredibly delicious and so versatile. It’s one of the few foods to enjoy plain. This juicy crustacean doesn’t need a dip, in my opinion, but I do provide a recipe for seafood sauce that we enjoy with it from time to time. You can also go for salted butter to enjoy with it.

Our problem is that we go to the Pacific Ocean and catch crab, but we are two (2) hours from home, and we know that the best-tasting crab is one that has been cooked right away.

Where do we get the Crab just cleaned and cooked on the Pacific coast?

Enter the Crab Center at Lincoln City

We also rent Crab Traps. They can be pickup at the Siletz River Location 82 Siletz Hwy South of Lincoln City 

Rent Three Trap Option Set of (3) Crab Traps, a bucket, and a crab gauge @$50/set.   Crab Traps can be picked up at 8 AM – Dark with reservations.

Rent One Trap Option Set of  (1) Crab Traps, a bucket, and a crab gauge @$40/set   Crab Traps can be pick-up 8 AM – Dark with reservations.

PURCHASE Three Trap Option   Three (3) Crab Trappers, a bucket, and crab gauge @$150/set.

PURCHASE Three Trap Option One (1) Crab Trapper, a bucket, and a crab gauge @$50. The office sales & reservation staff is only available to ask questions and sales from 8AM – 9 PM… 541-765-2109

Crab License … must-have.  Available at our Siletz River Location. Instate @$10/year….  Out of State @$20/3 days.

Crab Bait is not provided. We recommend you buy raw dark meat chicken for bait. Seals do not like chicken, but crabs do.

You rent crab traps, you catch the crab, and we will teach you how to clean and cook the crab ready for your dinner for $2.50/Crab.

Three (3) steps to have a Crab Dinner you catch yourself

This video tells the story of how Dinginess Crabs are caught commercially, how they’re processed, and what they look like when they reach your plate.

For the year 2023, we helped people catch, clean, and cook more 1056 Crabs for their Dinner.

New to Crabbing? …. Private Crab Clinic $25/per group Available by Appointment 7 days a week. You pick the date and time.

At the Crab Clinic, we will show our favorite Crab location that requires a dock, pier, or dock. You will be shown how to catch Crab, explained the Oregon Crab laws, and everything about Crabbing for $25, with no limit on the size of the group. 

Private Crab Clinic Details

1. Twenty ($25) for the entire group, no limit
2. The location will change depending on the group size and the weather.
3. The location will be given after your reservation has been received. To make a reservation, Call 541-765-2109

Where can you Cook Crab?  …. We help you fix your dinner

We provide the kitchen equipment to cook Crab and show you how to clean & cook the Crab…. ready to eat…. $2.50/crab

How to catch, clean cook, and eat Crab

If you’ve never cracked a crab, we’ll have you performing like a pro in no time. You can crack in the privacy of your kitchen. Or, throw a crack-it-yourself crab feast and invite your guests to participate with gusto! Just follow these easy steps.

1. Twist off each leg (including the two large legs with claws) where they join the body. Break off a small pincer and discard. Use your fingers and a self-assured manner.

2. Break large claws at the dotted line and crack with a nutcracker. Or place it on a cutting board and give it a light whack with a mallet or small hammer. Most purists consider this the choicest meat in Crab, so oohs and ahs are appropriate. You may wish to nibble as you go, dipping your crab meat in drawn butter or cocktail sauce or squeezing on a spritz of fresh lemon juice.

3. Crack the next two joints of the largest legs with a nutcracker or mallet and remove juicy, succulent meat. It’s perfectly acceptable – if you’re carried away with the proper amount of adventure – to suck the meat out of the shell as if using a straw. Or if you feel timid, use a nut pick or cocktail fork to remove.

4. Repeat the cracking procedure on the top two joints of the rest of the legs, making sure not to miss a single piece of flavorful meat.

5. Smaller joints of legs can be snapped with fingers, and meat either be sucked out or removed with a pick or fork. Or, show a little creative flair and use the pointed joints at the tip of crab legs as picks!

6. Grasp the main body of the Crab with two hands and firmly snap it in two. Place each section on a cutting board and strike with a mallet to break small bones and loosen the meat. Or, the more striking and independent crackers may use their fingers to separate and remove meat. A pick or cocktail fork comes in handy, too.

To take Crab home for Dinner

To store the Crab for devouring later, cover the meat and keep it refrigerated until use; if you wish to keep it longer than two or three days, pack it in a moisture and vapor-proof container (a glass jar is perfect). Crumple plastic wrap or lightweight foil and place on top of the container to exclude all air. Cap the container tightly and freeze.

Clean & Cook yourself ….. Dungeness Crabs to Eat

About one-quarter of the crab’s weight is meat. The flesh has what is a delicate flavor and a slightly sweet taste.

Live crabs can be cooked simply by dropping them into boiling salt water, waiting for a boil to return, and then allowing it to continue for 15 minutes. After that, the crabs are removed and placed into cold water to cool and then cleaned.  

Warning Dominic Acid

Dominic acid may leach into the cooking liquid when the whole crab is cooked in it. It is recommended that the cooking liquid be discarded and not used in other dishes, such as sauces, broths, soups, etc.

How to clean Crab

Refrigerate your whole cooked Crab until ready to eat. Then follow these simple steps.

To remove the back, hold the Crab base with one hand, place your thumb under the shell at mid-point, and pull off the shell.

The leaf-like gills are now exposed. Gently scrape them away with a thumb or spoon edge.

Wash away the “crab butter” (viscera) under a heavy stream of cold water.

Many feel the Oregon Dungeness Crab is best when served warm, straight from the shell, and dipped in drawn butter or seafood cocktail sauce. It also makes an excellent ingredient for a wide variety of delicious dishes.

Another method of preparing crab

It is called half-backing. Half-backing is done by flipping the crab upside down and chopping it in half (from head to “tail”), after which the guts and gills can be scooped or hosed out. Many consider half-backing to be superior to cooking the entire crab because the meat is not contaminated by the flavor or toxins of the guts. Furthermore, half-backed crabs boil faster or can be quickly steamed instead of boiled.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s shellfish program monitors recreational crab harvest in several of Oregon’s bays.  Click Here …. for Current crabbing reports

Releasing a “soft shell” crab is strongly recommended.  Soft shell crab is newly molted.  The volume of meat is low, and the quality is usually stringy and less palatable.

Recreational crabbing is also open in the ocean off Oregon, but the bays are open all year. There is a seasonal ocean crabbing closure from Oct. 16 through Nov. 30. Ocean crabbing requires larger boats and higher skills, and better conditions, so bay crabbing is more popular with larger boaters.

Cooking Crab

Dungeness crab is the best season on the Oregon Coast from mid-November to June, and it is eaten with delight worldwide and shipped to other locales as well. The finest crab is caught between November and March, so try to get meat early in the season. The meat is rich, savory, and so delicious that many enjoy eating Dungeness crab plain. However, there are a variety of tasty preparations for it, including salads, sandwiches, crab cakes, and seafood stews like cioppino.

The important thing to remember when cooking this type of crab is that the meat has an excellent and unique flavor that should not be overwhelmed by other ingredients; less really is more. Taste the meat plain before adding seasonings, and use a light hand to dress the crab, allowing your guests to taste it. Preferably, crab should be cooked live, so clean it after it comes out of the boiler or steamer by splitting it down the middle, removing the center section, and scraping away the gills on either side.

Do it yourself …….. Red Rock Crabs

When you think of crabs on North America’s West Coast, you think of the Dungeness crab—the giant, meaty crustacean. But the Dungeness lives with another crab: the Pacific red rock crab. The red rock crab (also known as just the red crab or rock crab) lives in and around rocky places such as Depoe Bay, which is very rocky—thus the name “rock crab.” These crabs are mean and will pinch you and are predators of hard-shelled clams and oysters.

Although the meat of the red rock crab is as delicious as the Dungeness, the red rock crab is smaller, making the body meat in rock red crabs more difficult to extract than that in Dungeness crabs.  Most of the meat is in the giant crusher claws these critters are armed with. 

This crab has tender flesh with good crab flavor. It’s best as an “eat from the shell”crab because the flaky flesh is difficult to remove. Serve it in halves, as shown below. The yield is meager, with a 1-pound crab yielding 2.6 ounces of crab meat (16%), but that’s better than other crabs. If you are fortunate enough to get a hold of giant red rock crabs, meaning the shell is more comprehensive than 6 inches, treat them as Dungeness and pick out all the meat for any crab recipe that suits your fancy.

How to Cook Red Rock Crab

1. Fill a large pot with very cold water, add a couple of ice trays, and set it aside. …
2. Cover the pot once the crabs have been added and the water stops boiling. …
3. Cool the cooked crabs in ice for 3-4 minutes. …
4. Put any unused whole-cooked crabs into plastic sealable food storage bags.
5. Eat the claws — boiled in a seasoned broth and eaten with butter or mayo — and then use the bodies of all but the largest crabs to make stock or sauces.

Crabbing is one of the Oregon Coast’s most enjoyable pastimes. The thrill of pursuing these cagey creatures is justly rewarded with savory table fare. A sport that can be shared with the entire family, crabbing continues to grow in popularity.

There is No cost or obligation to make a Reservation

Customer Service Hours …. 8 AM – 9 pm …. Everyday … 541-765-2109