Occasionally, when you do not feel like cooking and stressing in the kitchen, cooking frozen crab legs in the oven is such a terrific way to have a healthy quick meal without effort.
Moreover, when it comes to capturing the flavor of herbs and lemon in the cooking process, I always say baking crab legs is the way to go. It can be done with or without an oven bag, and thawing is simple.
Notably, crab legs are a nutritious and tasty seafood dish. Typically, you will find that you will be dealing with either king crab legs or snow crab legs. Unlike other crab meals recipes, only the legs are eaten, neither the claws nor the full body.
Read on as you get to learn an excellent way of cooking frozen crab legs in the oven.
Tips for How to Cook Frozen Crab Legs in the Oven
These tips will help match the cooking perfection your cooking expertise requires when delivering on this amazing task of cooking frozen crab legs in the oven. I also highlighted a good guide to help you through your cooking.
Thawing – Refrigerating crab legs overnight is the most effective technique to defrost them. If you’re short on time, you can also run them under cold water and then pat them dry.
However, you can still cook crab legs from frozen, but the effect is that the crab shell becomes a little softer as a result of the extra moisture. For the best results, I actually recommend thawing your crab legs.
Checking for Doneness – When the color of the crab legs has changed to bright orange and they are hot all the way through, this means they are done. If you are not sure, you can always test one leg by cracking it open. You will have to cook for a few minutes more if it isn’t hot enough.
Crab, like any other dish, can be overcooked. When this happens, the meat turns rubbery and becomes difficult to consume. Color is an important and simple way to check for excellence, but don’t rely on it alone.
Storage and Preservation – Cooked crab legs will keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days if you let them refrigerate properly. It can be further frozen so as to increase its shelf life. Freeze it in closed airtight containers or heavy-duty freezer bags, or wrap it tightly in heavy-duty aluminum foil – a freezer wrap will also work.
Cooking Crab Legs in Oven
If the crab legs are frozen, quickly defrost them in cold water until they are malleable but still cold. Proceed to put the crab legs in an oven bag – this is how to cook them in the oven in a seafood boil manner.
Go ahead to preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius).
You will have to combine all of the remaining ingredients, including corn cobs, sausage, potatoes, and seasonings. Then fill the bag with butter and lemon juice, you will need to shake the bag after tying it at the top. After that, you will need to place it inside a second oven bag and secure it with a tie.
Get it to the oven and bake for 45 minutes. To avoid steam burn, you have to carefully cut open the bag and cook the crab legs until they reach an internal temperature of 145°F.
To make sure the crab legs are done, you will need to crack one open and verify that the meat inside is firm, white, and easily flakes.
Notably, if you do not want to use an oven bag. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and fill a baking dish halfway with boiling water. In addition, if you allow for a little additional cooking time, you can even bake from when the crab legs are frozen.
Then go on and season the crab legs in the pan with the seasonings of your choice. You will have to arrange the crabs in a single layer on the baking sheet, using aluminum foil to cover up the pan.
Proceed to bake for about 8 – 10 ten minutes, make sure to flip the crabs after 4 minutes of baking though. This guarantees that the food is cooked evenly.
After flipping, replace the aluminum foil in its original position. Then go on and remove the crab legs from the pan once they are done cooking.
You can serve it warm enjoy your dish.
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Cooking Time for Frozen Crab Legs in the Oven
| Crab Legs in the Oven | Frozen Crab Legs | Thawed Crab Legs |
| Cooking Time | 25 minutes | 15 minutes |
Garlic Butter Baked Crab Legs (2 Servings)
Ingredients
- King crab legs
- 1⁄2 cup of butter (salted or unsalted)
- 1⁄2 head of garlic – about 5 garlic cloves (minced and pressed)
- 1⁄2 lemon juice
- 1⁄2 lime juice
- 1⁄8 cup of extra virgin olive oil
- Sea salt (optional)
- Dried parsley (optional)
Instructions
- You can start this recipe by preheating your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In the meantime, you will need to get a small pot. Then melt the butter on a low heat setting on your burner.
- Proceed to add the garlic and saute lightly. You can also squeeze in the citrus juice of your choosing.
- If you are using lemon, you can squeeze the juice onto your hands to make it easier to remove the seeds.
- You will need to reduce the heat to low while you let the flavors mingle until your oven is ready.
- Toss in a pinch of parsley and a pinch of salt (to taste) into the mix. Then, you can get a fork to mix in the olive oil. You can put off the heat.
- Proceed to place your delicious crab legs in a 9×13 baking dish and brush each leg with the sauce. Any remaining sauce should be poured all over the legs. Then put the baking dish on the center rack of the oven.
- You can still brush the sauce from the bottom of the pan onto the legs every 5-7 minutes while baking your crabs for roughly 25 minutes – depending on how thick the legs are.
- You can remove the dish from the oven
- To serve and enjoy the crab legs, garnish with a few pinches of parsley.
This dish is quite adjustable, so depending on how many people you’re feeding, you can add more or fewer crab legs to the baking sheet (just try not to overlap them as that will impact cooking time).
You can watch this video recipe to know how to cook frozen crab legs in the oven.