History

Maryland crab soup is the Chesapeake's vegetable-garden soup, a tomato broth packed with corn, lima beans, potatoes and blue crab, seasoned hard with Old Bay. It evolved as a thrifty way to stretch crab through a pot of summer vegetables. Its richer sibling, cream of crab, is a smooth, sherry-laced cream soup. Many Baltimore tables order them side by side, half and half in one bowl, and Chesapeake kitchens treat both as standards.

Common allergens: Shellfish

Make it at home

Yield 6Hands-on 25 minTotal 1 hrDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 1 pound blue crab meat, with shells for stock if you have them
  • 1 can crushed tomatoes
  • 4 cups beef or vegetable stock
  • 2 cups mixed vegetables: corn, lima beans, diced potato, carrot, celery
  • 2 tablespoons Old Bay seasoning
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Simmer the stock, crushed tomatoes, Worcestershire and Old Bay together for 10 minutes.
  2. Add the firmer vegetables (potato, carrot, celery) and cook until just tender, about 15 minutes.
  3. Stir in the corn and lima beans and simmer for another 10 minutes.
  4. Fold in the crab meat at the end and warm through gently so the lumps stay whole.
  5. Taste, adjust the Old Bay and serve hot with extra seasoning on the table.

Tip from the editors. Add the crab last and barely simmer it; long cooking shreds the lumps and dulls the sweetness you want against the spicy broth.

Where to eat maryland crab soup

Maryland crab soup in Baltimore

Gertrude's Chesapeake Kitchen ★ 4.3

BrunchChesapeake brunch$$$16 to $28downtownWeekend brunchReservations recommended

Gertrude's at the Baltimore Museum of Art runs a Chesapeake weekend brunch, plating crab Benedict and shrimp and grits on a terrace over the sculpture garden.

Order: Crab Benedict over the BMA sculpture-garden terrace.

Tip: Book the terrace for brunch overlooking the sculpture garden; the crab Benedict is the move.

10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218

Faidley's Seafood ★ 4.7

Street food$downtownMon-Sat daytime, closed Sunday

Faidley's stand inside Lexington Market serves the city's benchmark crab cake since 1886, almost all jumbo lump, eaten standing at a counter off brown paper.

Try: Jumbo lump crab cake

Tip: Order the all-lump grade and eat it at the stand-up rail; it also fries a classic lake trout.

119 North Paca Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

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