Crab dip

Crab dip is a thick, creamy hot or cold dip built on crab meat and a creamy base, most often cream cheese, with mayonnaise sometimes used as a second main ingredient. It is sometimes called Maryland crab dip and is usually served as an appetizer, with crackers, bread, pretzels or sliced vegetables for dipping. Cooks use fresh, frozen or canned crab, from jumbo lump to leg and claw meat, and versions add cheeses such as Cheddar or pepper jack, mushrooms, artichoke, onion, hot sauce or Old Bay seasoning. Hot versions are baked or broiled, often under a browned breadcrumb topping. Food historians trace its ancestry to eighteenth century English recipes for buttered, minced crab, and the name crab dip appears only after the Second World War.