If you’ve never cooked your own lobsters, you’ve gotta give it a try. It’s an adventure! And once you do it one time, the intimidation factor will be gone and you’ll feel more comfortable cooking them again. It is quite a process, but well worth it for that quintessential New England lobster experience.

Before we jump into the how-to, I’ll answer a few of the common questions about cooking lobster.

How should I cook my lobster? Should I steam or boil them? Or grill them?

All three options will do the job well. We typically steam the lobsters (we use a steamer basket inside a large lobster pot), because:

• Steaming is more forgiving and it’s a gentler cooking process. This means you’re less likely to overcook the lobsters.
• The process of lobster meat plucking is less messy – because there’s less lobster juice inside the shell.
• It’s a slightly safer method of cooking (less chance of water boiling over).

We also love grilling the lobsters, which gives the meat a great smoky flavor. Grilling a whole lobster will be a post for another day.

Is there a way to properly (and humanely) cook a lobster?

• The folks at Maine Lobster recommend putting them in the freezer (in the bag they came in) for 20 minutes prior to cooking. This sedates them.
• Also, this past fall, a Maine lobsterman told us if you put a lobster upside down on their nose, this is also sedating. We did this and it seemed to calm the lobsters down before we steamed them.

How long do lobsters take to cook?

• Maine Lobster has timing information here. The recommended time is based on the cooking method, size (#lbs) and shell type – hard vs new (some lobsters are new shell – indicating the lobster has just shed their old shell and therefore have a very thin shell, so therefore will take less time to cook). Add 3 additional minutes for hard shell.
• For 1 ½ lb hard shell lobsters, we steam them for 18-20 minutes (for hard shell lobsters), after the water comes back to a rolling boil (after placing the lobsters in the pot).

How do you know the lobsters are cooked through?

• An instant read thermometer in the underside of the tail closest to the body should read about 135-140 degrees F.
• The “head” will separate easily from the tail and the tail meat will be opaque and white – no longer translucent.
• The green stuff aka the tomalley (liver) will be firmish and green.
• The firm red stuff is the eggs (roe) of the female lobster. If the lobster is not cooked through the roe will be black and gelatin-like.
• The small walking legs will pull away from the body easily.
• The antennae will easily pull out.
• The lobsters will turn bright red when cooked (from a dark blue-green or greenish brown/black), but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are done.

Now that you’ve learned a few things about cooking them, let’s take you step by step through the process.

How to steam lobster: