Grilled Lamb Recipes

These grilled lamb recipes range from the simple and obvious, to the more adventurous. For the most part though, lamb is a great meat that has tons of its own, unique flavor which lends it perfectly to simple grilling recipes that just let the meat shine, accented by a few fresh natural ingredients. Some people find the slight gaminess of lamb a bit off-putting but others celebrate its unique flavor.

A couple tips on grilling lamb: First, the strong flavor of lamb is great on its own, but some simple accompaniments can really make it shine. Some of the classic grilled lamb ideas come from the Mediterranean coast, particularly southern France and Italy. Practically any fresh herb that grows wild in those areas is a great accent to the flavor of lamb. Garlic, rosemary, thyme, savory, oregano… you can’t go wrong. I will describe and demonstrate cooking leg of lamb on a fire pit rotisserie which is one of my favorite ways to cook it, not surprisingly.

Here is a grilled rack of lamb recipe that I threw together recently and turned out beautifully.

Second, there is a duality to lamb. Lamb is great just barely cooked, still pink in the middle, like a good medium rare steak. It is also excellent cooked slowly over hours until it is so tender it is literally falling apart. This technique is used often in lamb stews, tagines, Indian lamb curries, etc. But lamb has trouble between these two extremes. If you cook it too much, but not slow-cooked for hours, it gets quite hard, tough and leathery quickly. So for most grilled lamb recipes, shoot for a medium rare doneness where the outside is nice and seared and the inside is still pink and juicy. The timing of this will obvious vary considerably depending on the cut of lamb you are cooking. A small loin chop will cook pretty quickly while a whole, bone-in leg of lamb will take even a couple hours (depending on its size and your cooking temperature) to get to the point that the innermost parts are medium rare. This is a simple, classic Southern French grilled lamb chops recipe. This red-wine roast venison recipe is one of my favorites I’ve made recently

Check back soon because I try to add new grilling recipes often!