Best Lobster Roll Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Is traditional lobster roll with butter or mayonnaise? ›

While Maine rolls are served with chilled mayo-coated lobster salad on toasted split-top rolls, Connecticut-style rolls are warm and dripping with savory melted butter.

The simple, hand-held seafood sandwich is made with a toasted split-top bun stuffed with chunks of fresh lobster meat. There are two main kinds of New England lobster rolls: Maine and Connecticut. One is cold and the other is hot. One style is dressed with mayo and the other is drenched in butter.

Opting for chopped tail meat will also work, but we'd recommend saving the tails for a more authentic experience. It's almost as if lobster knuckle and claw meat were made to be used in lobster rolls and the soft, succulent consistency makes 'em the best choice around.

If you ask us, the perfect lobster roll is probably a classic Maine lobster roll, served chilled with a creamy layer of mayo and a perfect smattering of lemon butter served on a toasted split-top bun. But that doesn't mean you can't change it up now and then.

Clarified butter is butter that's been melted and the milk solids removed. The remaining fat is clear when melted, making it the best butter for crab legs and lobster dinners.

Unlike the classic New England lobster roll (made up of cold lobster salad in a bun), the CT version is comprised of a top-split hot-dog bun stuffed with warm lobster tossed with a little melted butter.

Chunks of fresh-from-the-ocean lobster meat drizzled with warm butter tossed with mayo—make that specialty aioli at some spots—and served on a crisp, buttery roll. It's poetry.

Rico DiFronzo, Executive Chef at Union Oyster House:

Hands down it is a cold lobster roll. To me, nothing says summer in New England like a cold lobster roll with a touch of lemon, celery and a little mayonnaise, served in a toasted buttered roll with a side of French fries.

Morander pointed to many reasons for the price hikes (the current cost of a Lobster Landing roll is $26.50), but emphasized three: the quality of the meat, sourcing challenges, and the labor-intensive nature or roll-making.

With a yield of around 30 to 40%, you should plan on about one and a half pounds of shell-on lobster per person, which will give you two 4- to 5-ounce lobster rolls.

How many lobster rolls can you make with a pound of lobster meat? ›

For crunch, add finely chopped celery if you like, and season with a dash of salt and pepper. You'll need about three 1 1/4-pound to 1 1/2-pound lobsters to get 1 pound of meat, which is more than enough for four well-stuffed lobster rolls. In fact, this recipe can easily be stretched to fill five or six buns.

A Maine lobster roll is served with the lobster meat chilled and dressed in mayo with some crunchy greens like chives, celery, and/or scallions. A Connecticut lobster roll is served warm, dunked in butter, on a toasted bun.

A lobster roll is a dish native to New England and Atlantic Canada. It is made of lobster meat served on a grilled hot dog–style bun. The filling may also contain butter, lemon juice, salt, and black pepper, with variants made in some parts of New England replacing the butter with mayonnaise.

Lobster: You'll want about 1/4lb of lobster meat per bun/person. Many grocery stores carry frozen, or refrigerated packaged or canned lobster meat. Claw, arm and knuckle meat is traditionally used in lobster rolls, but you can also purchase a whole lobster, steam it, and use all of the meat.

Lobster tail meat is poached in a butter bath, rendering the meat buttery and tender.

Crab Roll vs Lobster Roll

This crab roll recipe is almost identical to a New England-style lobster roll, with the exception of the meat. Here we're using crabmeat rather than lobster meat! In either case, the meat is tossed with just enough mayonnaise to hold it together, and served on a lightly toasted roll.