She-crab soup, somewhat of a cross between a bisque and a chowder, is a soup made with heavy cream or milk, crabmeat, sherry, fish or crab stock, and roe—a key ingredient in the dish that improves the flavor and is responsible for the color.

The soup is thickened with a roux or puréed boiled rice, and it is usually seasoned with either mace, onions, or shallots. A regional specialty of Tidewater, Virginia, the South Carolina Lowcountry, and Georgia coast, it was first introduced to these parts by the Scottish settlers in the 1700s in the form of partan-bree, a famous seafood bisque, but it was not until the 1900s that the soup gained its present-day form.