A tomato-based vegetable soup loaded with blue crab and Old Bay, sharp and a little spicy. It is the savoury counterpart to the city's richer cream of crab, and most rooms pour both.

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.

Where to eat Maryland crab soup in Baltimore

2 editor picks for Maryland crab soup in Baltimore, ranked by editorial score. All Baltimore signature dishes · Maryland crab soup across every city.

  • Faidley's Seafood

    Order The jumbo lump crab cake, broiled, almost all crab and no filler.

    Faidley's Seafood at Lexington Market has sold its jumbo lump crab cake since 1886, a stand-up counter where you eat the city's benchmark cake off paper.

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  • Gertrude's Chesapeake Kitchen

    Order The crab cake, plus a cup of the Maryland crab soup loaded with vegetables.

    Gertrude's sits inside the Baltimore Museum of Art, where founder John Shields cooks the Chesapeake canon of crab cake and Maryland crab soup.

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Make it at home

Serves 61 hrEasy

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.

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

Common allergens: Shellfish.