I love crabs! Give me some steamed with melted butter and I am a happy camper. However, a delicious version of eating crabs is dressing them with a hot soy chili garlic sauce. This Asian variant is easy to make and you’ll end up licking your fingers along with the succulent crab meat drenched in this sensational sauce.
For the sake of convenience, I use cleaned and cut fresh crabs available here in my local supermarket. But you can use live fresh crabs too. Make sure you rinse and know how to clean and cut them before you proceed to cook them. Cleaning part takes time but cooking crabs is super easy. You can actually tally it under your list of 30 minute meals. I love to pair these crabs in hot soy chili garlic sauce with roast baby potatoes. In fact, this was our Christmas Eve meal this year. You can tell we ate well!!
The sauce is concocted with basic supermarket ingredients like soy sauce, oyster sauce, Asian hot chili garlic sauce. I mix all of them in a bowl and then pour it over the crab sautéed with onion, ginger, garlic and Thai green chili peppers. It is important to use Thai chili peppers for the necessary flavor outcome. But if you cannot find them, using Serrano or even Jalapeño should work fine. The corn slurry thickens the sauce and makes it stick to the crab. This hot soy chili-garlic sauce complements the sweetness of the crab meat so well that you may never go back to plain old steamed crab with melted butter. There is nothing wrong in adding some heat and spice to your sweet old self.
Recipe
| Ingredients | |
|---|---|
 | 5 pounds Dungeness crab, rinsed, cleaned and cut |
| 2 tablespoons vegetable oil or peanut oil |
| 1 cup onion, sliced thin |
| 5 garlic cloves, sliced |
| 1 inch ginger, julienned or thinly sliced |
| 6 or 7 green chilis (Thai) sliced lengthwise |
| ½ cup soy sauce |
| 1 tablespoon oyster sauce |
| 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar |
| 1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce |
| ½ cup minced cilantro |
| 1 tablespoon cornstarch |
| Instructions | |
|---|---|
| Whisk ½ cup soy sauce, 1 tablespoon oyster sauce and chili garlic sauce in a small bowl and set it aside |
| Whisk 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 3 tablespoons cold water and make a slurry |
| Heat 2 tablespoons of peanut oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat |
| Add thinly sliced onions and stir fry until soft and translucent |
| Add ginger, garlic and chilis, and stir fry for a minute taking care not to burn any of the vegetables. Add the rice wine vinegar |
| Add cleaned and cut crab and stir fry with the onion, garlic and ginger for about 3 minutes |
| Add the prepared sauce to the crab and continue to stir fry for another 3 minutes |
| Add corn slurry and mix everything well |
| Turn off the heat, sprinkle cilantro and serve warm or at room temperature |
If you make these Crabs in a Hot Soy Chili Garlic Sauce, please leave a comment. I would love to hear from you! And if you do make this recipe, please don’t forget to tag me on Instagram or your favorite social media platform! I would love to see pictures of your creations.
Inspiration: Just another variation to eating crabs
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