Home > Learning Center > Live lobster

Live lobster

Although you probably wouldn’t want to eat a live lobster (ouch) you probably couldn’t wait to eat a recently dead lobster. In fact, most lobsters are cooked alive and served only a few minutes after they are boiled. This makes for a fresh, delicious seafood meal.

If you plan to cook live lobster, you may want to do the following:

• Cut up some onion and celery pieces and place them in a large pot. In general, the smaller the pieces of celery you cut are, the more they will enhance the flavor of the lobster.

• Add water into the pot where the vegetables already are. Do not add too much water. The water level should be about 1-2 inches above the tops of the vegetables.

• The rule of thumb is to add about one tablespoon of salt for each quart of water you pour into the pot, but this is not an absolute must. If you are on a low sodium diet, cutting back to about ½ a teaspoon would still yield close to normal results.

• While continuing to prepare the pot for the live lobster, you should also add a little fresh ground pepper to the pot. After each of these items have been added, place the pot over high heat and wait for the water to boil.

• Now, the moment of truth for the crab comes as you place the live lobster in a steamer basket (or head-first) and add it to the boiling water and the vegetables in the pot.

• There is not much to do after this step. Simply cover your pot and cook the live lobster until it turns bright red. By this point the live lobster will not be so “live” any more.

• If it is taking a while to get the lobster to the desired redness, check to make sure that you are not running low on the water level. If you are, simply add some more water so that it immerses the live lobster.