She crab soup is a classic low country dish with a rich, creamy base. This recipe includes a tip for making sure every bowl gets plenty of delicious, lump crab meat.
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"ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! My mom made this for me & my children and my jaw dropped after the first bite. This tasted like something out of a 5 star restaurant..."
Kaitlin
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In case you're not familiar, this is a rich soup traditionally made in the South Carolina Lowcountry, tidewater area of Virginia, and the Georgia coast. Charleston in particular, is full of restaurants claiming theirs as "the best".
Similar to a bisque, old school she-crab soup has heavy cream, seafood stock, crab meat, crab roe, and a sprinkling of dry sherry. The roe is where it gets its name, "she-crab" referring to the female crabs that produce the roe.
These days roe is very hard to find. That's mostly due to the restrictions on harvesting crabs (particularly females). We think those restrictions are a good thing, and soup made without it still has an amazing flavor.
Ingredient and substitution notes
- Butter - salted or unsalted will be fine. You just may need to adjust your salt accordingly.
- Onion - sweet onion is best here, and if Vidalia onions are in season they are just perfect!
- Flour - plain all purpose
- Seafood stock - you could substitute chicken stock
- Heavy Cream - you could go with half-and-half, but your soup won't be as rich.
- Worcestershire sauce - just a touch really enhances all of the flavors
- Lemon zest - if you don't have a lemon to zest a small spoonful of lemon juice would be okay, but the zest is really best.
- Mace - if you don't have it nutmeg is commonly used as a substitute.
- Old Bay seasoning - there really is nothing like it.
- Cayenne pepper - it's only ¼ teaspoon. Do yourself a favor and don't leave it out.
- Salt - whatever you have on hand.
- Crabmeat - Use lump crabmeat. It can be fresh, canned, frozen, or come in those little containers you find at the seafood market.
- Dry Sherry - We use the cooking sherry you can get at the grocery, but if you have some of the good stuff on hand, by all means, use it!
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Instructions
- Start by melting the butter in a large stock pot or dutch oven over medium heat.
- Cook the onion until soft and then add the flour.
- Add the stock, stirring well.
- Reduce the heat and stir until thickened (about 5 minutes or so).
- Stir a small amount of the hot roux into the cream to temper. This means you are bringing the temperature of the cream up so it doesn't curdle when added to the soup.
- Now add the cream and stir, bringing the heat back up to medium low or so, until it's thoroughly heated.
- Reduce heat again, and add half the salt, the worcestershire sauce, zest, mace, Old Bay, half the crab, and cayenne pepper.
- Simmer 5 minutes.
- Combine remaining crab meat, salt and sherry in a small bowl.
- Divide soup into serving bowls and top with a scoop of the crab/sherry mixture.
- Garnish with fresh herbs, if desired.
Exact measurements are in the recipe card below.
Cook's Tips
- It's always a good idea when cooking with crab to "pick" through it before it goes in your dish. If you've ever cleaned fresh crabs yourself you'll know that it can be really difficult to get out every last morsel of shell. Biting into that hard shell isn't very pleasant, so a thorough check to make sure it's clean is a good idea.
- Our top tip is leaving out half of the crab meat and mixing it with the sherry and a little salt. After the soup is divided into bowls then add the reserved crab mixture. Doing this ensures that each bowl gets a generous portion of that succulent crab meat. You don't want to start a fight over it, do you?
- The only other tip we have for you has already been mentioned. Tempering the cream with a bit of the hot liquid will prevent any curdling.
Serving suggestions
This recipe makes enough for 4 larger or 6-8 smaller bowls of soup.
If you want an entire meal with a southern seafood theme you'll want to follow up the soup with Southern Style Fried Shrimp.
To keep your experience focused on low country cuisine these Charleston Pecan Chewies are a traditional sweet treat from the area, and are made with simple pantry ingredients. Gullah Style Red Rice is one that goes way back in the lowcountry too.
Storing your soup
As seafood is pretty delicate we would not recommend keeping any leftovers longer than 3 days. Keep it tightly covered in the fridge and heat slowly over low to medium low heat, stirring often.
We do not recommend freezing this soup.
Recipe FAQ's
In the strictest interpretation of this classic recipe the answer would be yes. However, time and restrictions on harvesting crabs have softened the general thinking on the recipe. In all truthfulness you will most likely not know the gender of the crabs your crab meat came from, and it won't matter. It's still delicious.
For the largest pieces of crab meat you'll want to look for the term "lump" or "back fin". The flavor will also be outstanding.
📖 Recipe
She Crab Soup
Ingredients
- ¼ cup butter
- ¼ cup onion minced
- ¼ cup flour
- 3 cups seafood stock
- 2 cups heavy cream set out for a few minutes to prevent curdling when added to hot stock
- ½ teaspoon worcestershire
- ½ teaspoon lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon mace nutmeg can be substituted
- 1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1-½ teaspoon salt divided
- 1 lb lump crab meat picked through and divided
- ¼ cup dry sherry
Instructions
- Melt butter of medium heat in large stock pot or dutch oven. Cook onion until soft (about 3-5 mins)
- Add flour and blend to make roux.
- Add seafood stock to roux, stirring well. Reduce to low heat and stir until thickened (about 5 mins)
- Stir small amount of hot roux into cream to temper.
- Add cream to pot and turn heat back up to medium low, stirring until heated through.
- Reduce heat to low. Add next 5 ingredients, 1 teaspoon of salt, and ½ of the crab. Simmer 5 mins.
- Combine remaining crab meat, salt, and sherry in a small bowl. When you divide the soup into individual bowls, top with a scoop of the crab mixture in the center of the bowl.
Notes
- chicken broth or stock may be substituted for seafood stock
- nutmeg may be substituted for mace
- be sure crab meat has been checked thoroughly for any little bits of shell
Nutrition
This recipe made our top 10 of 2018. See them all.
Andrea Metlika says
Super delicious looking and sounding soup. I cannot wait to taste this!
Pam says
Hope you love it!
Courtney | Love & Good Stuff says
This soup was easy to make, flavourful, and quite comforting. Definitely a keeper!
Angela says
What a wonderful soup! My whole family loved it!
Pam says
Yay! That makes us happy!
Whitney says
Crab is mty absolute favorite so I will be trying this ASAP! And what is roe?!
Pam says
Roe is actually the name given to the eggs of the "she" crab.
Laurie Downs says
Quick and easy! Wonderful tasting. I’ve made it twice now. My Maryland husband loves it!
Pam says
Thanks so much for letting us know, Laurie!
Alene says
I loved this when I lived in the Washington DC area, for 35 years, and would spend time in the Outer Banks of N. Carolina. I live in Florida now, but if I can get decent crabmeat, I am definitely making this! Thank you so much for the recipe.
Pam says
Hope you enjoy Alene!
Christine Krantz says
I have searched and searched for this recipe ever since eating it in Myrtle Beach ! this is super good and easy to make but expensive to find decent crab meat in my land locked state !! I have really enjoyed this on special occasions !! Thanks for sharing it !!
Pam says
Awww... thanks so much Christine! Hate that it's so expensive for you, but hopefully well worth it.
Tammy says
We don't care for the taste of sherry or maybe we've just had bad sherry...lol. Would it still be good with leaving the sherry out? Thank you...it sounds really good!!
Pam says
We've not tested it without the sherry, but it should still be good Tammy. The sherry does add a layer of complexity to the flavors that She Crab Soup is known for but I don't see why it wouldn't be good without it.
Tammy K Bowman says
Can you tell us exactly what dry sherry you used?
Pam says
Hi Tammy, We just used an inexpensive cooking sherry.
Sophia says
What was the name of the dry sherry? I am at the grocery store right now.
Pam says
Hi Sophia, I don't remember a specific name, but you should be able to find cooking sherry in the section of your store with vinegars and cooking wines.
Jessica says
Today my family and I did not leave one bite of this soup in our bowls! I followed the recipe exactly minus the store bought seafood broth. Because I have a severe shrimp allergy I could not chance it so I made my own broth from scratch.
Thank you so much for this recipe, I think I'll do 1/8 tsp Cayenne pepper next time just for the kids. I have been asked to put this on the menu every month 🤣. This was a great way to use our leftover crabs as well.
Pam says
Yay! Thanks so much for letting us know, Jessica. It really means a lot when readers take the time to comment and leave a star rating on our recipes.
Starla says
Would it be possible to make this in a slow cooker?
Pam says
Not sure about that Starla. We haven't tested it. If you wanted to make it ahead of time and keep it warm in the slow cooker I think that should be fine as long as you don't go longer than an hour or two.
Kaitlin says
ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! My mom made this for me & my children and my jaw dropped after the first bite. This tasted like something out of a 5 star restaurant with it unique seasoning. She did make a few additions to the recipe. Kept the whole recipe including substituting mace with nutmeg (that’s all we have around here) but she blended up the onion it calls for, garlic, handful of fresh parsley & 2 celery sticks. I highly recommend this to anyone. She gave me your recipe + her additions so that I could make it for my littles that have been asking for it since we had it at her house lol. I’ve also shared it with a few friends & family. Thank you!
Pam says
Wow! Thank you so much Kaitlin!
Brianna says
I loved the flavor but mine did not thicken at all. It remained quite watery. Any suggestions tips to help it thicken?
Pam says
Hmmmm... did you remember the flour? If that's not the culprit the only thing I can think of would be if your crabmeat was packed in water and you didn't drain it.