Feast on Crab

Juicy and briny-sweet, Dungeness is celebration food. Any evening that begins with crabcakes instantly feels festive and special. And cracked crab is great to eat with close friends and family or with people you’d like to get to know better—because it requires rolling up your sleeves and diving in with both hands.

What could be more fun than that? Reach across the table for legs and claws and just a little more dipping sauce, dig out morsels of meat, and go for it.

Each of our recipes gives you the option to take it easy and use cooked crabs, or to take the plunge and cook them yourself. Either way, a feast awaits.

Cracked crab with lemongrass, black pepper, and basil

Big, bold Southeast Asian flavors team up in a perfect balance of salty, sweet, hot, and aromatic. You can make this recipe with raw, partially cooked, or fully cooked crabs. The first two options yield the most succulent meat.

Ultimate crabcakes with Devil sauce

The secret to our crabcakes? No bread, lots of seafood, and diced bell peppers for crunch and color.

Frederick Basgal of Menlo Park, California, a stellar home cook, shares with us his extravagant recipe for crabcakes loaded with seafood, plus bright chives and a tiny dice of bell peppers. His inspiration? A crabcake recipe in Hubert Keller’s The Cuisine of Hubert Keller (Ten Speed Press, 1996) for binding the crab with a creamy scallop purée rather than bread crumbs.