Spearo, fisherman, and passionate home cook. I enjoy harvesting my food from the ocean and sharing it with my friends and family. Follow along as I use species local to Florida to make incredible meals you can make at home.
Florida Spiny Lobster Arancini
This recipe is another great way to stretch the yield of your Florida Spiny Lobsters. Since you can use head, knuckle, and leg cluster meat, as I’ve done in previous recipes, this can be another meal you can make exclusively with parts of the lobster that are commonly thrown away. For this one, however, I chose to use tail meat, simply because I had already used the other parts of the lobster for a different recipe.
Florida Spiny Lobster Arancini
This recipe assumes that you already have lobster broth on hand, but if you don’t, you can reference my Spiny Lobster Knuckle Head Soup recipe that shows you how easy it is to make a broth. There are many different ways to make broths with lobster, but the key point is only cooking the shells for about 45 minutes. Any more than that and you’ll end up with a bitter liquid.
How I Got The Lobster For This Recipe
This was actually my last lobster haul of the 2024-2025 Florida Spiny Lobster season. I went spearfishing off of Dania Beach and ended up getting 4 total; 2 male and 2 female. I had originally thought about freezing the tails and doing something with them later, but I decided to use them all fresh.
Florida Spiny Lobster
I ended up making 4 different meals for Brittany and I out of these 4 lobsters, which is double what using just the tails alone would have done. I’m going to make a post soon like I did for my Last Florida Keys Black Grouper, to show all of the recipes I made with my last haul of the season.
Boil or steam your lobster tail.NOTE: You can also use the lobster head/knuckle/leg cluster meat instead.
1 Florida Spiny Lobster Tail
Remove from heat and put in an ice bath to stop the cooking process.
Remove the meat from the tail, rough chop, and set aside.
For The Risotto
Heat your olive oil over medium/low heat. Add in your shallots and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 Shallot
Add in your rice and sauté for about 2 minutes while you stir.
1½ cups Arborio Rice
Add in your white wine and continue to cook the rice until most of the white wine has been absorbed. Be careful not to let the rice burn on the bottom.
1 cup White Wine
Add in your old bay. Mix throughly.
1 tsp Old Bay
Add in your lobster broth ½ to 1 cup at a time until all of the broth is absorbed. Make sure to stir occasionally. This may take around 30 minutes.
5 cups Lobster Broth
Once the rice is cooked through, add in your lobster meat, parsley flakes, heavy whipping cream, and grated parmesan cheese.
1 tbsp Parsley Flakes
¼ cup Heavy Whipping Cream
¼ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 Florida Spiny Lobster Tail
Stir everything together until the parmesan cheese has melted and the rice has a nice texture.
Remove from heat, transfer to a large bowl, cover, and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.NOTE: You can leave it in the refrigerator overnight if you need to.
For The Arancini
Remove the risotto from the refrigerator.
Make your arancini balls by taking your risotto and forming a ball around a mozzarella pearl. I would aim for about the size of a golf ball. I did slightly larger ones and ended up with 12.NOTE: Depending on how much cheese you want you can use more than 1 mozzarella pearl per ball.
Fresh Mozzarella Pearls
Once you have formed your ball, roll it in your bread crumbs until evenly coated and set aside.
Bread Crumbs
Repeat until you have used all of the risotto.
Heat your peanut oil to 375 °F in a pot.
Peanut Oil
Fry the arancini ball until golden brown. Mine took about 7-8 minutes.
Cook in batches (if needed), until you have fried all of them.
Garnish with basil, grated parmesan, and serve with a marinara sauce.
Boil or steam your lobster tail.NOTE: You can also use the lobster head/knuckle/leg cluster meat instead.
2
Remove from heat and put in an ice bath to stop the cooking process.
3
Remove the meat from the tail, rough chop, and set aside.
2tbspOlive Oil
1Shallot
4
Heat your olive oil over medium/low heat. Add in your shallots and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
1½cupsArborio Rice
5
Add in your rice and sauté for about 2 minutes while you stir.
1cupWhite Wine
6
Add in your white wine and continue to cook the rice until most of the white wine has been absorbed. Be careful not to let the rice burn on the bottom.
1tspOld Bay (or to taste)
7
Add in your old bay. Mix throughly.
5cupsLobster Broth
8
Add in your lobster broth ½ to 1 cup at a time until all of the broth is absorbed. Make sure to stir occasionally. This may take around 30 minutes.
1tbspParsley Flakes
¼cupHeavy Whipping Cream
¼cupGrated Parmesan Cheese
1Florida Spiny Lobster Tail
9
Once the rice is cooked through, add in your lobster meat, parsley flakes, heavy whipping cream, and grated parmesan cheese.
10
Stir everything together until the parmesan cheese has melted and the rice has a nice texture.
11
Remove from heat, transfer to a large bowl, cover, and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.NOTE: You can leave it in the refrigerator overnight if you need to.
12
Remove the risotto from the refrigerator.
Fresh Mozzarella Pearls
13
Make your arancini balls by taking your risotto and forming a ball around a mozzarella pearl. I would aim for about the size of a golf ball. I did slightly larger ones and ended up with 12.NOTE: Depending on how much cheese you want you can use more than 1 mozzarella pearl per ball.
Bread Crumbs
14
Once you have formed your ball, roll it in your bread crumbs until evenly coated and set aside.
15
Repeat until you have used all of the risotto.
Peanut Oil
16
Heat your peanut oil to 375 °F in a pot.
17
Fry the arancini ball until golden brown. Mine took about 7-8 minutes.
18
Cook in batches (if needed), until you have fried all of them.
Fresh Basil (for garnish)
Marinara Sauce
19
Garnish with basil, grated parmesan, and serve with a marinara sauce.
