When you are shopping in stores or online for crab legs, there are different criteria you should consider before you make any purchase. Knowing what to look for when testing how crab looks, smells, feels, and tastes is important. Even if you do not buy crab in a store, these tips will help you make sure that you ordered the best crab legs online, as well as ensure your crab legs delivery is fresh and will not cause you to get food poisoning.
How to Tell Good Crab Legs From Bad Crab Legs
When buying crab legs, pay attention to their smell. If crab legs have an ammonia odor, you should not buy them. Similarly, make sure to choose the largest legs possible. The best crab legs should also have their joints fully intact.
When it comes to making sure your crab legs are fresh and safe to eat, there are several steps that you should adhere to after you store them. The first step is to check the date. King Crab legs can last unfrozen for five to seven days. However, some people even recommend waiting no more than two days to eat refrigerated crab meat. If you exceed that period, the meat will likely go bad. Otherwise, properly frozen crab legs can often keep their flavor for up to a year.
Knowing the healthy color of crab leg meat is also crucial. The meat found in a crab’s body is brown. However, crab leg meat should have a snow-white color. The best crab legs adhere to that color and if it does not appear snow white, you should avoid eating it in case it has gone bad or you overcooked it.
When it comes to the texture of crab leg meat, you can use a fork to tell if it is good or bad. King Crab leg meat should be delicate. If the crab leg meat is tough or chewy, it is overcooked, and it has spoiled. However, keep in mind that crab legs are precooked by providers and often flash frozen prior to delivery. For that reason, they only require reheating for a few minutes at most.
What Do the Best Crab Legs Taste Like?
The final step you can take in order to ensure your crab legs are edible is taking a taste test. As a whole, crab legs should taste sweet. If they do not, there is a good chance that the crab meat expired and you should discard it. However, bear in mind that different crab legs taste different, even if the differences are subtle.
Alaskan King Crab legs are renowned for their rich, sweet meat. Its tender texture is not unlike lobster meat. Still, while red King Crab is described as the richest of the Alaskan crustacean, golden King Crab possesses a milder flavor to its meat. These distinctions are important to consider when making sure that you received the best crab legs from a company.
