Lobster Roe is the Black and Red Stuff Inside Your Lobster

★★ “Could you please tell me what this black stuff was? We were completely grossed out and threw both lobster tails away.” — Ramona, Huntingdon, PA

If you’ve ever cracked open a lobster tail, found a dark, gel-like mass inside, and felt your stomach drop, you’re in good company. Ramona did too. She saw the black stuff, figured something had gone wrong, and both tails went in the trash.

Nothing had gone wrong. Here’s what she was actually looking at.

Black inside a lobster tail is almost always one of two things, the intestinal vein or roe.

• The intestinal vein is a thin dark line running down the back. If you find this, simply remove it and rinse the tail for a few seconds under cold water, the same way you devein a shrimp.
• If it’s roe, the eggs of a female lobster, you can identify them as they are a dark, near-black green color and look like the image above when raw. Simply cook the roe through and it turns bright red-orange. Some people even consider it a prized part, and chefs call it coral.

So the black gel isn’t spoilage and it isn’t a defect. The lobster only requires a two-second rinse if it was the vein, or, if it’s roe, extra cooking time or a simple scrape it off. Still have questions? We have answers. Here’s some more information on lobster roe, how to discard it, cook and prepare it, and a few fun facts.

What Lobster Roe and the Black Goop Is

Lobster roe is lobster eggs meaning the lobster is female and mature enough to reproduce. It can be found inside of the lobster where the female stores unfertilized eggs for between 9 and 12 months, then once the female mates the fertilized roe is stored under her tail on her swimmerets where you’ll find the black orbs.

The roe is stored on the swimmerets to protect the eggs, oxygenate them to clear silt off and to get the eggs oxygen to breathe so they can grow. The roe will stay here for another 9 to 12 months while they incubate and are held to the swimmerets by a thick gelatinous goop that works as a natural glue. This is what the black stuff inside the lobster body cavity and tail is.

Good news, the black stuff that holds the eggs in place is fully edible once cooked. The black stuff here is different than the green tomalley you’ll see in the tail which health officials do not recommend eating.

Fun fact: Female lobsters can carry roughly 8,000 eggs per pound of lobster, with some larger lobsters carrying over 100,000 eggs on their tails.

Cooking the Lobster Roe

If you’re lucky enough to find lobster roe in your cooked lobster, you can enjoy it as a delicacy. Chefs at high end restaurants will even nickname it “lobster coral” and may look for it specifically to prepare dishes. The lobster roe can be incorporated into pasta dough, combined into pasta sauces, and there’s recipes for Homard au Beurre de Corail (a classic French lobster dish) that requires lobster butter. The butter is infused with the coral for a flavor burst.

The roe adds a briny and oceanic taste which helps to amplify the flavors in a soup like lobster bisque or a risotto. The lobster roe can also be served as a red color pop on deviled eggs that are served alongside lobster rolls at a summer cookout. It adds additional flavors to the deviled eggs and keeps the flavors across each serving complementary.

Other people may use it as a topper on a seafood dip, as a texture element on top of clams casino or oyster Rockefeller, or even in a salad. The only thing you need to do is make sure it is cooked thoroughly.

Fully cooked lobster roe should be red just like the shell. If it is black, it needs to go back into the heat. Not sure whether the tail itself is fully cooked? Here’s how to tell when lobster is done.

The easiest way to cook lobster roe if you’ve already scraped it off of the lobster tail is to:

1. Heat up a boiling pot of water or a shallow pan with roughly 1/2 to 1 inch of water so you can get the roe out easily once done cooking.
2. Place the black roe into the boiling water.
3. Watch for it to turn red then remove it from the water. This takes roughly 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Give it a quick rinse for 10 seconds under fresh water.
5. Store it in an ice bath if you don’t need it immediately but will be using it in the near future, or use it immediately.

If lobster roe isn’t for you, don’t worry, not everyone enjoys it.

Getting Rid of Lobster Corals

Sometimes the lobster meat and dish is enough, you don’t want the added texture or need to make a sauce or infused butter. Getting rid of the lobster roe is easy.

• If inside the body cavity or on the tail meat gently scrape it off with a spoon.
• On the tail, remove the meat from the shell and discard the shell.
• When you find black goop on the meat, gently scrape it off with a spoon or use a paper towel or clean cloth to wipe it away.

Once it is gone, give the lobster a quick rinse for 10 or 20 seconds under cold fresh water and then pat it dry. You don’t want to keep it under the water for too long or you’ll also rinse away some of the lobster flavor.

If you’re lucky enough to find black goop and coral in your lobster, congrats, you have what some people consider a delicacy. Don’t throw the tails or lobster out, you can simply scrape it away and give your lobster a quick rinse. And if you need more lobsters, click here to buy our lobster tails or here for live Maine lobsters. Want to avoid roe altogether? We sell lobster meat that is already shelled and either cooked or raw making it easy to enjoy your meal.