The 9 Best Tasting Crabs On Earth, A Very Unscientific Ranking

Gather around everyone because today we are ranking the best tasting crab on earth. These extremely unserious and infallible crab rankings have been broken down into the 9 best tasting crab species, as determined by yours truly.

What are my qualifications you wonder? The first thing you need to know about me is I love to eat and there are no limits to what I will try. Boiled, broiled, alive, fermented, fried, baked, cooked into a soup, molded into a cake, it doesn’t matter when it comes to crabs because if it is delicious I will eat it.

Ranking The Best Tasting Crab On Earth

These rankings of the best tasting crab in the world are an extension of a rankings I first published years ago of the 25 Best Tasting Fish in the World. Countless times since I have first published that article I have had people email me at cass@brobible.com to tell me they consult that list anytime they are shopping for fish or ordering at a restaurant and need guidance. I’ve never led any of them astray.

Today, I hope to achieve the same goal by ranking the best tasting crab on earth. The nine contenders below are all fairly common. I didn’t want to toss in any species that are so rare you might see it on a menu once in your life. So with that in mind, let’s get to ranking the best tasting crab on earth!

9. Spider Crab

First up here is the Spider Crab which can be found in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea. There is also a Japanese Spider Crab that is endemic to Japan. As such a widely available crab, preparation has pretty much been perfected throughout the centuries.

Delicate, briny, and sweet. Spider Crab has all the characteristics of a great crab but in a head-to-head comparison against any other crab species it falls short. Buttery? Sure, but less buttery than most. Delicate and briny? It is! But pales in comparison to others.

The major redeeming quality of Spider Crab is the variability in price. In Europe you can often find it at extremely affordable prices. California too. Japanese Spider Crab though… That can cost you an arm and a leg for larger crabs so be sure to check the price before ordering anywhere!

8. Sawagani Crab

If you are an adventurous eater you simply must indulge in Japanese Sawagani Crab at some point. Why adventurous? Because these tiny crabs that are about the size of a fiddler crab are eaten ALIVE.

I have been served Sawagani Crab several times in recent years at Omakase meals. They chill these crabs to the point of being catatonic and you eat them whole (and alive). The umami flavor is rich and very similar to a potato chip. In fact, the first time I was given this dish I (1) had no idea the crab was alive and (2) thought I’d just eaten a fried crab because it tasted so much like a potato chip.

Toss a little caviar and crème fraîche on top of this crab and you might be responsible for creating the next food craze. Just be sure to credit me if you do!

7. Jonah Crab

Jonah Crab, while absolutely delicious under many circumstances and in many dishes, lacks the je ne sais quoi of other players in the crab game. That’s because Jonah Crab has a subtle flavor compared to other Northern Atlantic crab species.

Often found at an all-you-can-eat buffet, Jonah Crab claws are divine. But they often do require a dipping sauce to enhance the subtle flavors.

6. Dungeness Crab

Dungeness Crab is not for everyone but I sure do love the rich Pacific Ocean flavor that comes through in these crabs. When I was in Oregon this time last year the first thing we did after landing in Portland was go to a restaurant on the River to load up on Dungeness Crab for lunch before driving up to Mt. Hood.

As a lighter, flakier crab it lends itself well to a variety of dishes. Served hot or cold, paired with melted butter or eaten right out of the shell, Dungeness Crab is a regional delicacy that is underappreciated on the whole but at the end of the day it falls short of the other crabs ranked higher.

5. Peekytoe Crab

Often described as a perfect blend of Dungeness Crab and Blue Crab, Peekytoe Crab gets slept on by crab connoisseurs way too often. My first trip to Iceland was spent ensuring I ate Peekytoe Crab (aka ‘Atlantic Rock Crab’) at least once a day if not more frequently.

Served in a soup or chowder, fried into a fritter, on top of a salad, as a standalone dish. It simply does not matter how you eat it because Peekytoe Crab offers unmatched sweetness in the crab world.

4. Alaskan King Crab

How on God’s green earth can Alaskan King Crab be ranked 4th among the best tasting crab? I’m as shocked as anyone by this and I am the judge, jury, and executioner here. I LOVE Alaskan King Crab. I’d eat it until the point of being surfeited and unable to take another bite of anything.

Alaskan King Crab legs are enormous. They offer some of the single best crab bites money can buy. But the primary reason Alaskan King Crab has landed where it is on this list is scarcity and cost. While it is incredible, the bang for your buck just isn’t there.

With the rich buttery flavor of lobster you are often times paying more for Alaskan King Crab than lobster. It is also getting more and more expensive each year as the fishery in Alaska continues to decline while demand remains strong.

All things being equal, scarcity/cost/fixin’s, Alaska King Crab would be higher up this list but as things stand it ranks fourth among the best tasting crabs on earth.

3. Maryland Blue Crab

My relationship with Maryland Blue Crab started off rocky. For years I did not get the hype. I sought it out, was taken to a few different restaurants, one of them being an all-you-can-eat joint in the greater D.C. area, and it just never clicked for me. There was so much work involved for such little crab.

Then I got a little older and was able to afford the Jumbo/XL options. Someone recommended I visit Cantler’s near Annapolis. And my life was forever changed after the first bite.

Not to get too into the weeds litigating what constitutes a proper crab cake, but it must be baked and not fried, and additives must be kept to a minimum. Let the crab do the talking in the dish or you are simply trying to mask inferior crab with extraneous ingredients.

Anyway… With the jumbo Maryland Blue Crabs suddenly I understood the juice was worth the squeeze. I was able to get a real taste of the distinctly iconic sweet and buttery flavor it is known for. The work of digging out crab from all of the hard to reach places was no longer a task, it was a leisurely activity to keep me busy between delicious bites so I could pace my eating accordingly. My only real problem with Maryland Blue Crab is that it is virtually impossible to find them fresh here in Florida.

2. Snow Crab

Real ones know that while Alaskan King Crab is larger and more expensive than Snow Crab, the latter is tastier. Snow Crab is delicate. It is briny. It packs a punch that cannot be found elsewhere.

One of my favorite ways to indulge in Snow Crab clusters is in a Low Country Boil. Mixed in with the shrimp, sausage, potatoes, corn, and anything else that might find its way into the master sauce. But Snow Crab can and does more often serve as the main event at a meal.

It is also much more affordable than Alaskan King Crab so you can eat significantly more. And while King Crab has slightly better macros when it comes to protein-per-pound, Snow Crab is still hovering around 15.7g/protein per every 3 ounces which is phenomenal.

1. Florida Stone Crab

For my money, Florida Stone Crab is the single best-tasting crab on planet earth. I know this is an entirely subjective take but I’m a born and raised, multi-generational Floridian and Stone Crab has always occupied a special part of our lives here.

We eat it at Thanksgiving as an appetizer before the main event. At Christmas we often do a ‘Surf and Turf’ with Steak and stone crab. It gets bought/caught for birthdays, anniversaries, and other holidays.

The tangy dipping sauce(s) have emerged in recent years as my favorite accompaniment. When I was younger it was all about the butter but these days I stay clear. Lobster makes a great vessel for butter intake but Florida Stone Crab can stand alone without any sauce whatsoever and outshine the competition.

Prized for a sweetness and clean taste that is entirely free of any “fishy” flavor that’s present in other seafood dishes, it is best eaten freshly steamed off the boat bought from a fishermen but reheated from frozen will do just fine too. And the latter is quite common as the fishing season for Florida Stone Crab is limited from October 15 to May 1 each year. That said, you can still purchase it year-round at Joe’s Stone Crab locations so there is always a way around the dates.

What do you think of the rankings? Let us know in the Facebook comments or you can email me anytime at cass@brobible.com with feedback!