Claw Meat Is The Budget-Friendly Alternative For She-Crab Soup

She-crab soup is a Lowcountry specialty. You can find this tasty twist on crab bisque on the menu at almost any seafood restaurant or diner you visit on the Georgia and South Carolina coasts. The telltale yellow color that distinguishes she-crab soup from its chowder cousins historically comes from bright orange crab roe, the unfertilized eggs found in the bodies of mature female blue crabs. The rarity of blue crab roe can make the dish prohibitively expensive. That's because harvesting unfertilized female blue crabs, while legal, is ethically questionable considering the species' population decline in recent years. Whether for reasons of cost or conservation, most home cooks (and many Lowcountry restaurants) skip the roe altogether in favor of lump crab meat. 

Lump and jumbo lump crab meat, typically harvested from male crabs, avoids many of the ethical and ecological concerns of she-crab soup, but it's still pretty pricey at around $25 per half-pound, depending on where you get it. But you can make your she-crab soup even more budget-friendly by substituting claw meat, which costs around $10 per half-pound, for some or all of the lump meat in your recipe. It also has a more intense crab flavor than the sweeter, milder lump and jumbo lump meat, which makes claw meat ideal for dishes like she-crab soup where you want the crab to be the star of the show. Plus, its firm, meaty texture holds up better in soup than the finer, softer body meat.

You can swap out half of the lump meat in your recipe for claw meat if you want to keep as much of the sweet flavor and smooth texture of the lump meat as possible while still saving a little money. This works great if your seafood counter or fish market allows you to buy different grades of crab meat in the quantity you want (which is rare), but if you have to buy it pre-portioned, this hack won't save you much money unless you make a double batch of she-crab soup — or make it twice. In that case, go ahead and swap all the crab meat in the recipe for claw meat. Your soup will have a much more intense crab flavor and the meat will have a firmer texture, but is that really such a bad thing?

If you're only substituting half the lump meat for claw meat, add the firmer, meatier claw meat when you add the cream. It has a drier, grainier texture than lump meat, so giving a few minutes to simmer in the soup before serving will allow it to soak up moisture and fat from the soup. Save the finer, sweeter lump meat until the end, adding a bit on top of each bowl just before serving, where it will have the most impact on taste and texture.