Crab Meat

Crab meat is the picked flesh from crab legs, claws, and body, typically snowy white with delicate flakes. It tastes sweet and briny with a tender, slightly springy bite; it holds together as lump when gently bound or can be gently folded to preserve large pieces. Cooks fold it into salads and pasta, form crab cakes and croquettes, stir it into chowders, or use it in sushi rolls and dumpling fillings; it is sold as jumbo lump, lump, backfin, claw, or pasteurized canned meat.

Coastal cuisines worldwide prize crab, with notable traditions in the Chesapeake Bay, Gulf and Pacific coasts, East and Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean. Meat is typically steamed or boiled in-shell then hand-picked, with some pasteurized for extended distribution and export.