Baked Crab Legs with Garlic Butter
These Oven Baked Crab Legs with Garlic Butter are made using Old Bay Seasoning and either snow crab legs or king crab legs. Baking crab legs in the oven is so simple! They are ready in 25 minutes and easy to crack.
Servings 2 servings
Calories 529kcal
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 pounds crab legs
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 tablespoons butter Melted.
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice This was the juice of half a lemon for me.
- 2 teaspoons finely chopped parsley
- 6 garlic cloves Minced; adjust to your taste. I love immense garlic flavor.
- 2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning optional, can also use salt and pepper to taste.
- 1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
- foil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Pat the crab legs dry and place them on a sheet pan.
- Combine the olive oil, melted butter, parsley, and seasoning in a bowl.
- Brush the butter mixture over both sides of the crab legs.
- Cover the pan with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes. For immense flavor, remove the foil and baste the crab legs with additional butter and seasoning after 10 minutes. Return the foil and resume baking.
- Examine the shoulder (this is the large white part of the cluster). It should be pearly white.
Video
Notes
- You can use snow crab legs or king crab legs. King crab legs may need an additional 5 minutes of baking.
- Adjust the spices and seasoning to suit your taste. Omit the Cajun seasoning if you want.
- For immense flavor, remove the foil and baste the crab legs with additional butter and seasoning after 10 minutes. Return the foil and resume baking.
- If your crab legs don't have much flavor, they needed to be basted or you didn't purchase quality crab or the crab is expired/has gone bad. Even without seasoning, the crab legs should have a sweet taste (if they haven't gone bad).
- Some people feel like brushing the garlic butter sauce and seasoning onto the crab legs makes it more of a messy experience. It does. Feel free to skip this step and use the ingredients as a dipping sauce.
- I typically make an extra batch of the garlic butter sauce just for dipping because I love to dip.
- To crack a crab leg, I hold the leg horizontally, with the back of the leg facing me. Then press down on either the middle of the leg or about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom of the leg. I can always tell if the crab is fully cooked (reheated) and fresh because of how easily it cracks.
- If when I crack the leg, it doesn't return a nice chunk of meat, and the meat is stuck on the inside, it's usually because the crab wasn't baked long enough or because it wasn't cracked soon enough after baking. The longer they sit, the harder they are to crack and easily remove the meat.
- I tested these in the Instant Pot and in the air fryer. Making them in the Instant Pot is probably my favorite. The shells are the easiest crack likely due to the pressure cooking.
Nutrition
Serving: 1pound | Calories: 529kcal | Carbohydrates: 16g | Protein: 55g | Fat: 26g