Cold Crab Dip

Name: Cold Crab Dip
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 15 min
Ingredients: 8 ounce Cream Cheese (Softened); 1/4 Cup Greek Yogurt (Or sour cream); 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt; 1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper; 1/2 Lemon (About 2 tablespoons lemon juice); 3 Garlic Cloves (Pressed or finely minced); 1 Celery Stalk (Diced finely); 2 Tablespoons Diced Fresh Parsley; 2 Tablespoon Diced Fresh Chives; 8 ounces Dungeness Crab (or other crab meat); Add in your favorite hot sauce

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This cold crab dip is a perfect summertime appetizer. It's creamy and loaded with fresh dungarees crab. Simple to make, can be ready in minutes and doesn't require any cooking.

A plate with a bowl of fresh crab dip, ritz and cucumber slices.

Every year my family packs up and heads out to the pacific coast to catch our seafood favorite. The Dungeness crab. I love loading up my freezer every year with this amazing seafood!

If we don't eat over half of it while cooking and cleaning our fresh dungeons crab we turn it into recipes like a crab bisque, crab risotto, crab deviled eggs and countless other Dungeness crab recipes.

Honestly, crab dunked in this garlic butter sauce for seafood is the best.

If a hot and creamy dip is more your style, check out my cheesy hot crab dip and all the different ideas that you can serve with crab dip.

Do you love seafood dips? Then be sure to take a look at my smoked salmon dip and baked razor clam dip.

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⭐️Why You'll Love This Dip
🥘Ingredients and Substitutions
🔪How to Make
🍽Ways to Serve
❓Recipe FAQs
🦀Other Crab Recipes
📋Recipe

⭐️Why You'll Love This Dip

Loaded with Fresh Crab: This dip is absolutely stuffed with crab meat. You can either mix with a hand mixer to break it up or for larger chunks, fold it in with a spatula.
Quick and Easy: Once the cream cheese is soft, this recipe takes under 10 minutes.
Great Appetizer: This dip is great to share with all the seafood lovers in your life. They will eat it up!
Fresh Flavors: The cream cheese can be a bit heavy so adding things like celery, herbs and fresh lemon help balance it out.

🥘Ingredients and Substitutions

Ingredients to make a crab dip. A bowl of fresh crab, fresh chives and parsley, cream cheese, sour cream, salt & pepper, garlic, celery and lemon.

Fresh Crab: This recipe calls for fresh Dungeness crab but any other crab meat or imitation crab can also be used.

Greek Yogurt: The yogurt gives this dip a tang but also thins it out and makes it more creamy. Sour cream can also be used in its place.

Lemon Juice: Make sure to use fresh lemon juice. Imitation will not bring the freshness this dip needs.

Optional: If you would like this dip to have more of kick, add in your favorite hot sauce.

See full information on ingredients and quantities in the recipe card.

🔪How to Make

Before starting, take out the cream cheese and allow it to soften at room temperature. This usually takes 30min to an hour, depending on the temperature of your home.

It needs to be soft enough to whip with a hand mixer.

One photo with cream cheese and sour cream creamed together and a second photo with fresh herbs added.

Step 1: In a bowl, mix the cream cheese and Greek Yogurt with a hand mixer until it is soft and creamy. (Image 1).

Step 2: Add in all the other ingredients (except the crab) and continue to mix until everything is fully incorporated. (Image 2)

A glass bowl with cream cheese, sour cream and fresh crab mixed in.

Step 3: Mix in the fresh crab. I typically advise folding in the crab so there are still clumps. For this particular dip I like the crab broken up more with a hand mixer.

Using the hand mixer, break up the crab and mix it in the cream cheese until it is fully combined. (Image 3)

If you want the crab more chunky, use a spatula to fold the crab into the cream cheese mix.

Step 4: Chill if possible or serve right away. This crab dip is almost better the next day, so chill overnight if time allows.

🍽Ways to Serve

This cold crab dip can be served as a dip or as a spread onto a bagel or with a fresh slice of overnight sourdough bread. Here are some things you can dip with:

Pretzels
Potato chips
Ritz crackers
Cucumber slices
Celery & carrot sticks
Bagel chips

Get even more ideas of what to serve with crab dip.

❓Recipe FAQs

How long is cold crab dip good in the refrigerator?

Cold crab dip will keep up to 5 days when stored in an air tight container in the refrigerator.

What are different ways to eat crab dip?

Crab dip can be enjoyed in lot's of different ways. Consider serving with Ritz crackers, potato chips, pretzels, fresh cut cucumbers, celery or smother on a bagel.

How do you make crab dip less fishy?

The lemon and cream cheese should help the crab be less fishy. Before making the dip the crab can also be soaked in milk for 15 minutes and then drain and pat dry. This will help take away some of that flavor.