My husband and I love raising our family here in Southern Utah… but if there is anything we miss about our coastal homes, it’s the seafood. I grew up just south of Seattle. My husband grew up near Baltimore, Maryland. And that beautiful state knows how to do crab right! Ever heard of the Maryland Blue Crab? Straight from the Chesapeake Bay during the summer months. Ahh… delicious! We live for the visits home to devour REAL crab.
One of our favorite fall seafood dishes is Cream of Crab soup. And even though we can’t get fresh crab anywhere near here, we’ve found an awesome alternative. Costco sells Phillips lump crabmeat in one pound containers. 
It is pricey, to be sure- $21.99 for that pound. But for us, it is completely worth it to splurge occasionally to have that real taste of home. Please, please PLEASE- if you have any respect for seafood at all, do NOT use imitation crab. Just don’t. It’s not the same. It will never be the same. It’s an insult to lump crab everywhere to go with anything other than the real deal. And it really doesn’t even taste that good!
Just do yourself a favor- pretend imitation crab does not exist. You will thank me.
Cream of Crab soup found in restaurants in Maryland is a little different than my recipe here. A true Cream of Crab soup is your cream base, Old Bay and other seasonings, and lump crab meat. That’s it. And it really is delicious! We’ve made some additions to ours, which we love, but it definitely makes it a different soup. I think I was originally hoping that adding corn and potatoes to ours would entice our kids to eat it better. We had one taker out of the four… the rest still aren’t convinced. But, we’ve decided we like it this way and haven’t gone back! It does make it a heartier soup, which is nice.
- 1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)
- 1/2 medium onion, chopped
- 1/3 cup flour
- 4 cups milk of half and half
- 1 T Old Bay Seasoning
- 1/2 tsp. parsley flakes
- 1 lb.lump crabmeat (NOT imitation)
- 1 medium potato, sliced
- 1 cup frozen corn
- Melt butter in a large saucepan on medium heat.
- Add onion and stir five minutes or until softened.
- Add flour, Old Bay and parsley; whisk until well blended.
- Whisking constantly, gradually add milk.
- Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in potatoes.
- Reduce heat to low; simmer 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in crabmeat; simmer another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add corn one or two minutes before serving, just to heat through.
