The Chef-Approved Way to Crack a Lobster So You Don't Lose Any Meat

There's a story my husband likes to tell about one of our very first dates, almost 13 years ago. We were sitting at a beachside restaurant in Delaware and we'd ordered whole lobster for dinner. I'd never had whole lobster and my Cajun instincts kicked in when I saw it. I'm from Louisiana , so I grabbed the lobster and attempted to crack it like you would a crawfish.

As you can imagine, that didn't work. It did give my husband a good laugh, though, and it's a memory he loves sharing with people.

If only I'd known celebrity Chef Eric Adjepong's lobster-cracking tips all those years ago. He recently shared a demo on Food Network's TikTok and these tips would have come in handy during that fateful dinner (but then we wouldn't have that funny story). His method helps you retain all of the meat and is easy enough that even a non-pro can pull it off.

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How to Crack Open a Lobster Tail

First, Adjepong lays a clean, dry towel on a cutting board, then places the steamed lobster on top. He grabs two more clean, dry towels and uses one to grip the tail of the lobster and one for the body.

"Then I kind of just twist to release that beautiful lobster tail meat," he says. This is similar to how we crack crawfish, so maybe I wasn't too far off!

Adjepong then wraps the tail in the towel and presses down on it to help crack the shell and release the meat from the inside. He calls it a "chiropractic approach," which totally cracked me up (pun intended!). If you put enough pressure to crack the shell properly, the meat inside will come out easily.

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How to Crack a Lobster Claw

Cracking lobster claws is not something I'm good at doing. I usually ask my husband to do it, or I use crackers (and then still ask my husband to do it). Adjepong has an easy method for this, too!

He pulls the claw and knuckle from the body of the lobster, then separates the claw and knuckle from one another, using the towels to help him keep his grip. He then applies pressure to the knuckles to crack them open the same way he did with the tail.

The claws are harder, though. With these, he starts by removing the smaller claw, which he calls the thumb. Then, he goes back to applying pressure, but doing it as gently as he can so that the meat stays intact.

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How to Crack Open a Lobster Without Crackers

This is an "unconventional" method that "gets the jobs done," Adjepong says, but there are times you may need to use crackers to help you get some of the tougher parts of the lobster shell to release. That's ok, but once you learn this "chiropractic method" of getting the meat out of the shell, you can crack a lobster without using tools.

I've always felt that the tools made a mess, and they hurt my hands. With Adjepong's method, you get lots of juicy, plump lobster meat without a huge mess. I can't wait to try this the next time I have lobster.

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