How To Properly Reheat Crab Legs For Juicy Results

Crab leg night is an excellent celebratory seafood feast (you can be bold and use some to make a seafood dessert, even), but if you were a bit overzealous when buying them, you might end up with some leftovers. Considering the price of crab legs in this day and age, you would be entirely remiss if you opted to just toss them. Instead, with proper reheating technique, they'll taste just as good the following day as they did the first.

One of the best methods for reheating crab legs is to steam them. In contrast with boiling, you can use a smaller pot and much less water — so it'll take a lot less time than boiling them. You'll basically fill a pot with about a few inches of water and get it boiling, then place a steamer or colander with your crab legs over it. It takes just a few minutes, and your crab legs will be juicy, succulent, and ready to be dragged through clarified butter once again.

You can also do a full boil of your next-day crab legs if you don't have a colander or steamer that will fit over your pot. Just bring a pot of water to a boil and submerge the crab legs in it for about five minutes. The biggest drawback of this method is that it can take forever to get the water boiling, especially if you have a lot of leftovers and need to use a huge pot.

There are a few other appliances, other than your stove, that you can use to reheat crab legs if that's your desire. Some people opt to bake them on a lipped baking sheet (lipped so that the juices don't run all over your oven). Make sure to tent aluminum foil over them so that they steam in the heat and don't lose any of their juiciness.

You can actually use your microwave to reheat crab legs (it's so good for cutting cooking corners, after all), though you might have to heat them up in batches if you have a lot of leftovers. To ensure succulence, you can wrap each cluster in both a wet paper towel and plastic wrap; zap them for a few minutes on a microwave-safe bowl or plate, or just place them on the carousel.

Cooked crab legs, being eminently perishable, can absolutely go bad if they're not reheated and eaten within a specific time frame, typically three to five days (provided they are stored in the fridge for that entire time). So if you're on the edge of that period and you're not sure if you should go ahead and reheat the leftovers, here are a few signs that your crab legs have turned.

First, the odor. You'll notice this as soon as you pull the bag or container out of the fridge and open it. Good crab legs might have a slightly seaside aroma, but they should also smell sweet and fresh. Bad crab legs stink — you'll know it when you smell it, and you likely won't be able to un-smell it for quite a while.

If the colors of both the shell and the meat inside have faded considerably since they were cooked, that's also not a great sign. Press on the meat; does it still feel firm, or did it turn into crab mush under your finger? Is there a seafood slime present, with the texture of syrup? These are all indications that you should toss your cooked crab legs, unfortunately, and opt, perhaps, for this delicious imitation crab instead.