This Mexican Crab Soup Is Comfort In A Bowl
A rich broth studded with sweet lumps of crab meat, this Mexican crab soup might be unlike anything you've had before. Hailing from Veracruz, on the Mexican Gulf Coast east of Mexico City, chilpachole de jaiba features a fiery broth filled with the flavors of fresh vegetables, the sea, and dried chiles — as well as plenty of heat to set your tongue tingling.
In this recipe, the base of the soup's flavor comes from sauteed onion, garlic, red bell pepper, tomato, and cilantro, as well as toasted chiles guajillos and chiles de árbol. The addition of shrimp or fish stock brings the first taste of the sea, and plenty of tender crab meat completes the set — with the help of warm spices like paprika, cumin, coriander, pepper, and a dash of cinnamon, of course.
Seafood soups are often heavy, relying on sometimes overwhelming quantities of dairy. Not so with this Mexican delight. There's no cream needed here; the dish relies instead on pureed vegetables for its rich texture. For an added layer of flavor and thickness — still without adding dairy to the mix — try crumbling some warm corn tortillas into the soup. They thicken the soup further and add a light corn sweetness that pairs beautifully with the briny heat of the chilpachole.
Gather the chilpachole de jaiba ingredients
For this recipe you will need chiles guajillos, chiles de árbol, vegetable oil, yellow onion, garlic, Roma tomatoes, cilantro, red bell pepper, paprika, cumin, black pepper, coriander, cinnamon, shrimp or fish stock, lump crab meat, lime juice, and sugar. You may also want a bit of salt to adjust the seasoning at the end, and corn tortillas for serving.
Step 1: Heat the pot
Bring a large pot to medium heat and add the dried chiles.
Step 2: Toast the chiles
Toast the chiles for 5 minutes, flipping once, until darkened. Remove to a cutting board.
Step 3: Add the vegetables
Add the vegetable oil to the pot followed by the bell pepper, onion, tomatoes, garlic, and cilantro, and saute for 3 minutes.
Step 4: Add the spices
Stir in the paprika, cumin, pepper, coriander, and cinnamon. Remove the stems from the chiles and return them to the pot as well.
Step 5: Simmer the broth
Add the stock, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.
Step 6: Puree the soup
Using an immersion blender, puree the soup.
Step 7: Add the crab
Stir in the crab meat and remove the soup from the heat.
Step 8: Adjust the seasoning
Add the sugar and lime juice, and adjust the seasoning to taste.
Step 9: Time to eat
Serve hot, with corn tortillas crumbled into the soup, if desired.
What can I serve with this Mexican crab soup?
Chilpachole de Jaiba (Mexican Crab Soup) Recipe
With a rich fiery broth studded with sweet lumps of crab meat, this Mexican crab soup, chilpachole de jaiba, is filled with fresh vegetables and dried chiles.
Ingredients
- 3 chiles guajillos
- 3 chiles de árbol
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 3 roma tomatoes, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- ¼ cup cilantro, roughly chopped
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon coriander
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 6 cups shrimp or fish stock
- 12 ounces lump crab meat
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- Juice of ½ lime
- Salt, to taste
Optional Ingredients
- Corn tortillas, for serving
Directions
- Bring a large pot to medium heat and add the dried chiles.
- Toast the chiles for 5 minutes, flipping once, until darkened. Remove to a cutting board.
- Add the vegetable oil to the pot followed by the bell pepper, onion, tomatoes, garlic, and cilantro, and saute for 3 minutes.
- Stir in the paprika, cumin, pepper, coriander, and cinnamon. Remove the stems from the chiles and return them to the pot as well.
- Add the stock, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Using an immersion blender, puree the soup.
- Stir in the crab meat and remove the soup from the heat.
- Add the sugar and lime juice, and adjust the seasoning to taste.
- Serve hot, with corn tortillas crumbled into the soup, if desired.
What is the best crab meat to use with this chilpachole recipe?
If you don't happen to be on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, crab may not be the easiest protein to acquire, and choosing the wrong crab is a common cooking mistake. While some crustaceans may arrive at your local market either alive, as in the case of lobster, or frozen, like you might buy snow crab legs, blue crabs — the traditional crab for chilpachole – are often harder to come by. Fortunately, canned crab is a simple, easy-to-find solution that works great for this sort of recipe. The crab meat comes out of the can cooked and ready to eat in lovely lumps. All you have to do is mix it into your spicy soup, and you are ready to go.
If you want the full experience, however, you can add a lot of crab flavor to your soup by using whole crabs. Boil them with the vegetables and chiles and then pick the meat and add it to the soup. Blue crabs are the best choice for this, but really, whatever you can get your hands on will do. Just make sure that you stay away from krab: Imitation crab meat is very different, and is actually made from processed fish.
Can I substitute different chiles in this chilpachole recipe?
In this recipe we opted for both guajillo chiles and chiles de árbol, two common Mexican chiles. Guajillo chiles are prized for the fruity and earthy notes that they add to dishes as well as their mild heat. The smaller chiles in the recipe are chiles de árbol, which pack a much greater punch than the guajillo chiles. Guajillos come in somewhere around 2,500-5,000 Scoville units – between a poblano and a jalapeño – while chiles de árbol are more like 15,000-65,000 Scoville units, which puts them above cayenne peppers and below Thai chilies. These two chiles combine to make a delicious and fiery soup, but there are lots of different types of chiles out there, and you can definitely make a swap if you need to.
The best replacement for guajillo chiles would be ancho chiles. Ancho chiles are dried poblano peppers, and are another stalwart throughout Mexican cooking. They carry a similar spice bill to the guajillos as well as an excellent earthy, smoky flavor. If anchos are also not on the menu, dried New Mexican chiles also have a similar level of heat and flavor profile to guajillos.
As for the chiles de árbol, you have a few options. For starters, if you don't like a really spicy soup, consider leaving these out or reducing the number used. But if you can't find them and you want that burn, you can easily substitute in cayenne peppers or Thai chilies. The chiles de árbol are mostly there for heat, so fresh chilies with a similar Scoville rating will work just fine.