Dungeness Crab vs Snow Crab: Taste, Meat Yield, Price & Season

Dungeness crab vs snow crab comes down to body versus legs. Dungeness is a whole West Coast crab, about 2 pounds at legal size, with sweet, flaky body meat, firm legs and roughly a quarter of its weight in meat. Snow crab is a smaller Bering Sea crab sold almost entirely as frozen, pre-cooked leg clusters: sweet, delicate meat that pulls apart in strands, with nothing to pick.

Order Dungeness for a whole-crab feast or the best picked meat for cakes and salads. Order snow crab when you want easy, hand-crackable legs for a boil or a crab-legs platter.

Dungeness crab vs snow crab at a glance

	Dungeness crab	Snow crab
Species	Metacarcinus (Cancer) magister	Chionoecetes opilio (“opilio”)
Where it’s caught	Aleutian Islands to Mexico; landed in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California	Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off Alaska
Size	Legal at 6¼ inches across; about 2 lb at legal size, 2-3 lb typical	Males up to about 6 inches across; commercial males 1-2 lb
How it’s sold	Live, whole cooked, frozen sections, picked meat	Frozen, pre-cooked leg clusters
Flavor	Sweet, delicate “stand-alone” flavor; body meat richer than legs	Sweet, delicate, snow-white meat
Texture	Firm leg meat; white, flaky body meat	Flaky leg meat that separates into strands
Meat yield	About 25% (a 2 lb crab gives ½ lb of meat)	Clusters are nearly all edible leg
Season	Oregon opens Dec. 1, Washington coast Dec. or Jan.; peak supply Dec.-Apr.	Bering Sea opens Oct. 15; most landings Jan.-Apr.
Dock price (2024, NOAA)	About $4.02/lb whole	No U.S. landings 2022-2024; small quotas since
Per 100 g cooked (USDA)	110 kcal, 22.3 g protein, 1.2 g fat, 378 mg sodium	115 kcal, 23.7 g protein, 1.5 g fat, 691 mg sodium

Which is bigger, Dungeness or snow crab?

Dungeness, by a wide margin, and almost all of it is body. Oregon’s commercial legal size is 6¼ inches across the shell; Alaska’s is 6.5 inches notch to notch. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says a legal male weighs about 2 pounds, legal crabs typically run 2 to 3 pounds, and a large male can exceed 10 inches across.

Snow crab is the opposite build. NOAA says males reach about 6 inches in shell width, and ADF&G puts commercial-size opilio at 1 to 2 pounds, with the eating in four pairs of long walking legs. That is why one is sold whole and the other as legs.

Which crab has more meat?

Dungeness gives more meat per crab and has a published yield. The Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission says meat is about 25 percent of shell weight: “the average yield for a 2 lb crab is ½ lb of picked meat.” Oregon’s pre-season tests require an average of 25 percent meat (23 percent north of Cascade Head) before the season opens, and ODFW notes real-world meat content runs from 13 to 30 percent depending on how recently the crab molted.

Snow crab is bought by the cluster, so you pay only for the meatiest part. The commission’s Dungeness serving guide: one whole cooked crab per person, one to two sections, or 4 ounces of picked meat.

What does Dungeness crab taste like compared to snow crab?

Dungeness crab taste is sweet and a little richer than snow crab, with two textures in one animal. The commission describes a “sweet, delicate, stand-alone flavor,” firm white leg meat with pink tones, and white, flaky body meat. The body meat is the prize: denser and more buttery than any leg.

Snow crab is lighter. NOAA describes the meat as “sweet, delicate, and flaky,” and its snow-white color gave the crab its name. Leg meat pulls apart in long strands, easy to dip in butter and easy to overcook. For flavor notes by species, see what crab tastes like.

How is each one sold and cooked?

Dungeness comes four ways, per the commission’s buying guide: live, “whole-cooks” (fully cooked, still needing cleaning), frozen sections (“a cooked and cleaned crab, minus the back shell and split in half”) and picked meat. To cook a live crab, boil it in salted water 18 to 20 minutes from the time the water returns to a boil, cool it, remove the back shell and gills, rinse, then twist off the legs and crack them with a mallet.

Snow crab is cooked and frozen before it reaches you, so at home you only reheat: thaw, steam a few minutes until hot, and crack the thin shells by hand or with kitchen shears.

When is Dungeness crab season, and when is snow crab season?

Dungeness is a winter crab. Oregon’s commercial season opens December 1 “when shells have hardened” and runs through August 14, with up to 75 percent of the catch landed in the first eight weeks. Washington’s coastal season typically starts in December or January, once tests show males have refilled their shells after the fall molt, and runs through September 15. Fresh whole-cooked crab is most plentiful December through April, when retail prices are usually lowest.

Snow crab is an Alaska winter fishery with a rough recent history. The Bering Sea season opens October 15, and NOAA says most of the harvest lands January through April. The fishery was closed for the 2022 and 2023 fishing years after the stock collapsed, and NOAA’s 2025 assessment still lists it as overfished and rebuilding. ADF&G set a 9.3-million-pound quota for 2025/26 and cut 2026/27 to 5.1 million pounds, with the season closing May 15 or 31, 2027, by subdistrict.

Which is more expensive, Dungeness or snow crab?

At the dock, Dungeness is cheaper per pound, but that is whole crab against legs. NOAA’s landings statistics put 2024 U.S. Dungeness landings at 70.2 million pounds worth $282 million, about $4.02 a pound, with dock prices between about $2.70 and $5.00 over 2019-2024. Snow crab had no U.S. landings in 2022 through 2024 because the fishery was closed, and the quotas since are a fraction of the historical catch, which keeps cluster prices high.

Compare by edible pound: a $4-per-pound whole Dungeness at 25 percent yield is about $16 per pound of meat, while a cluster has no wasted body, so its higher sticker price is closer to the real cost. Check current counter prices, which move with the season.

Dungeness vs snow crab vs king crab

	Dungeness	Snow crab	King crab
Size	2-3 lb whole	1-2 lb; sold as clusters	Up to 24 lb, 5-foot leg span; sold as legs
Flavor (source)	Sweet, delicate, flaky body meat (ODC)	Sweet, delicate, flaky (NOAA)	“Rich, sweet flavor and delicate texture” (NOAA)
Dock price, 2024	About $4/lb	Fishery closed 2022-2024	About $12/lb (8 million lb, $96 million)
Sodium per 100 g cooked	378 mg	691 mg	1,070 mg
Best use	Whole-crab feast, crab cakes	Boils, crab-legs platters	Showpiece legs

For the king crab side of that table, read snow crab vs king crab.

Which should you order?

Whole-crab dinner at home: Dungeness, one crab per person, cracked at the table.
Crab cakes, salads, dips: Dungeness picked meat, or blue crab lump; see blue crab vs snow crab.
Seafood boil or a crowd: snow crab clusters, which reheat in minutes and crack by hand. Our seafood boil guide covers timing.
Kids or first-timers: snow crab. No cleaning, no gills.
Lowest sodium: Dungeness, at about half the sodium of snow crab and a third of king crab per 100 g (USDA). FDA testing puts crab (blue, king and snow) at a low 0.065 ppm mean mercury.

In Orlando, Fish On Fire’s peel & eat shrimp is the shell-on, hands-on order without the crab hunt. For the lobster side, see crab vs lobster.

Bottom line

Dungeness is the bigger, meatier, richer crab and the one to buy whole; snow crab is the lighter, sweeter, easier crab and the one to buy as clusters. Dungeness is cheaper per pound at the dock and peaks December through April; snow crab supply is tight after the Bering Sea closures. Whole crab and picked meat mean Dungeness, legs for a boil mean snow crab.

Dungeness Crab vs Snow Crab: What's the Difference?