On grilling or roasting grassfed lamb
If you’re used to grilling or roasting supermarket lamb (lamb chops, butterflied legs of lamb) – one thing you’ll notice is that grassfed lamb cooks faster. A LOT faster! This is because it’s much leaner, with a lower fat content. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can grill it or roast it exactly as you would conventional lamb – you’ll end up with shoe leather.
Cook your grassfed lamb to a lower temperature than you may be accustomed to! Experts on cooking grassfed meats recommend an internal temperature of 120-145 degrees for lamb (120 degrees for rare; 130 degrees for medium; 140 degrees for well-done), significantly lower than USDA’s recommended temperature range of 145-170 degrees. As meat continues to cook once removed from a heat source, remove it a few minutes early (5-10 degrees before desired temperature range), tent it loosely with foil, and allow it to rest for a few minutes up to 15 minutes, depending on the size of the piece of meat (so that juices can reabsorb) before re-testing the temperature and carving.
Racks of lamb are notoriously challenging to cook to exactly the right temperature. If you try to roast them in the oven, you’re likely to find that the outside is overcooked while only the inner part is to your taste. We recently discovered the perfect solution: put them in a marinade, and cook them “sous vide” (French for “under vacuum”): basically you exclude as much air as possible from the package, and place it in a water batch at a pre-selected temperature. The lamb will ONLY cook until it reaches your desired temperature, be it rare or medium-well; it won’t continue to cook unless you were to raise the temperature. Enjoy a glass of wine and some cheese and crackers while the lamb is cooking in the water bath, then finish it for a few minutes on a hot grill. More info about the sous vide process is available on the Serious Eats website; note that sous vide heaters/circulators are available for $150 from Amazon.
Two cookbooks that we’ve really enjoyed that contain lots of recipes for grassfed lamb (grilled or otherwise cooked) are: “The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook”, by Shannon Hayes, and “The Farmer and the Grill”, also by Shannon Hayes. These books explain the differences between conventional and grassfed meats, as well as how to adapt recipes. Everything I’ve tried from these cookbooks has been delicious! The recipe in the second of these books for grilled lamb spareribs with “salmuera” (a garlicky, salty brine added toward the end of grilling) is especially delectable. Members of my family fight over the right to the last ribs!
Below you’ll find links to some of our favorite lamb recipes. It’s fun exploring how to cook cuts you’ve never imagined eating!
Some of our own recipes:
Lamb Marinade (for grilled chops or butterflied legs of lamb or racks of lamb)
Shepherd’s Pie (for ground lamb)
Instant Pot Lamb Stew (for lamb shoulder cubes)
Recipes from the web that we’ve particularly enjoyed (these will open in a new tab):
General. The “American Lamb” website offers approximately 400 mouth-watering recipes. You can search by cut of meat.
Mediterranean Lamb Burgers used to be available on the American Lamb website; we’re glad we saved a copy, as it’s our favorite way to cook lamburgers (and even hamburgers).
Moussaka is a fabulous way to use ground lamb. We’re especially fond of the Serious Eats recipe in the link provided. It takes a bit more time to prepare than some other recipes, but it’s well worth the effort!
Lamb Feta Peppers (for ground lamb; we omit the sugar, and use brown rice)
Oven-baked Gyros (from Serious Eats). This recipe doesn’t require a rotisserie! I haven’t tried this yet, but gyros is one of my favorite meals, and I can’t wait to try this!
Braised Lamb Shanks (delicious way to use lamb shanks – be prepared to increase the quantity of leeks!)
Almost Spit-Roasted Moroccan Lamb (a recipe by one of my favorite chefs, Paula Wolfert; cooked in the oven until the meat is just starting to fall off the bone. One of my favorite recipes for (bone-in) lamb shoulders!)
Warm lamb “salad” with mint and pomegranate (from Nigella Lawson, one of my favorite chefs). This meal is as stunningly festive in appearance as it is tasty – perfect for a holiday meal (when pomegranates are in season). It’s perfect for “do ahead” dining, as all you need to do is reheat before serving and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and juice. Nigella Lawson even provides an easy way to get the seeds out of a pomegranate! Serve warm, over warmed hummus and half a round of warmed pita bread, and watch it disappear!
Lamb riblets with cumin seeds. Another favorite from Nigella Lawson (nigella is the name given to black cumin seeds; this recipe uses both nigella and conventional cumin seeds), this is a perfect thing to do with the small lamb ribs from the breast. It makes a perfect appetizer.
Lamb Rib Roll (a recipe by South African chef Jan Braii). This is a perfect way to use a breast of lamb/lamb spareribs – viewed by many chefs as one of the tastiest cuts of the lamb. If you want to learn how to de-bone breast of lamb, you can find a video here). Note that the boneless lamb rib cuts he uses are larger than ours.
Moroccan Heart Kebab (delicious way to cook lamb heart; serve with cous-cous). Works well with either a couple of lamb hearts, or double the recipe if you’re using a beef heart, which is much larger than are lamb hearts.
Liver and Onions (my “go to” recipe for lamb liver. My spouse refuses to eat liver, so I reserve this for evenings when he’s away and I can pig out on my own, with leftovers. Lamb liver is a drop-in replacement for beef liver; divide the recipe in two if you’re only cooking 1 lb of lamb liver).
Steak and Kidney Pie. (Ever wondered what to do with lamb kidneys? They work much better than the (much larger) beef kidneys for this recipe. Feel free to purchase frozen puff pastry; it saves a TON of effort! My spouse and children “claim” they won’t eat kidneys, but I’m skeptical; whenever I make this, it disappears awfully quickly).
Let us know if you ever find yourself with a cut that you don’t know how to cook!