Spider Crabs (Sheep Crab) - The First Taste

Spider Crab Caught Off of Point Loma

On one of our recent trips to the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market in downtown San Diego, Ingrid and I decided to buy some spider crabs.  The price seemed amazing, $2.50 per pound, especially considering they were being sold next to Spiny Lobster for $23.00 per pound.  While we were chatting to the fishermen (one of the benefits of the market), we learned that the spider crabs are caught while fishing for the lobsters - they are a byproduct of fishing for their much pricier neighbors.

A spider crab is a generic name given to a family of crabs called the Majidae.  Although the particular species of spider crabs that we bought was not divulged, after a bit of research, I believe it was likely the Sheep Crab.  The Sheep Crab is found off the coast of California from San Francisco to the Baha Peninsula.  As our fisherman noted, the Sheep Crab is usually considered a byproduct of lobster fishing.  According to the California Department of Fish and Game, this is likely due to the lack of available markets that will sell Sheep Crab and the hard shell, which makes processing the body meat uneconomical. 

Spider crabs are available year round in San Diego (if you can find them), and the crabs available at the market were caught off of Point Loma.  We ended up buying three spider crabs for our dinner that night - intending to process the crabs and figure out what to do with the meat later.  As soon as we got home from the market, we threw the crabs in the freezer for a humane numbing before their steam bath.  Our crabs averaged just over two pounds each, so after a seventeen minute steam - eight minutes per pound (average weight of each crab) - and a quick cool down, Ingrid got down to picking the meat. 

It took just over an hour for Ingrid to pick all three crabs - though I should mention that Ingrid is an expert crab picker (with significant experience in blue crabs) - and we came away with a few cups of crab meat from the lot - which was more meat than I expected - that tasted sweet and satisfying - on par with the more familiar and available snow crab and Alaskan king crab (and at a fraction of the cost).

Ultimately, our first spider crab experience proved worthwhile - great taste, low cost, moderate effort.

To read the California Department of Fish and Game's report on Sheep Crab, click here (click on the sheep crab link).