In this recipe for slow-cooked lamb shoulder, I use blackcurrant juice to make the most delicious glaze and roasted onions. You can cook a leg of lamb this way too. Serve for Sunday roast, Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas. Paleo, gluten-free friendly.
This slow-cooked lamb dish is absolutely delicious and perfect for a weekend roast dinner, Easter or Thanksgiving. It’s probably best left for when someone can be around the house to keep an eye on it while roasting in the oven.
While this roasted lamb shoulder comes with a lovely caramelised onions and naturally sweet glaze from fruit juice, vinegar and a little honey, there is no added refined sugar. Per portion, the carb count is still relatively low, even with the sweet glaze.
We served this dish with simple butter lettuce and radish salad with pear dressing and some spiced, mint yoghurt on the side. Mixing regular or coconut yoghurt with some lemon juice and mint is also a nice condiment for this dish.
Cook’s notes
You can use lamb shoulder or leg of lamb or even beef roast cut for this recipe. I used lamb shoulder without the joint, and if it comes rolled and tied with a string, simply remove it and unroll the meat so it’s flatter.
I used 100% blackcurrant and apple juice for the glaze but you can easily use other dark, tart fruit juices such as pomegranate, grape or cherry.
If you want to make a salad with a pear salad dressing: cut one ripe pear into small cubes and mix it with 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar, 2-3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, 1/2 tsp of sea salt, 1/2 tsp of ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp of wholegrain or Dijon mustard and 1/2 tsp of ground coriander seed powder. Toss through a bowl of lettuce and radishes.
To make the spiced yoghurt: use half a cup of natural, unsweetened, full-fat yoghurt or coconut yoghurt, and combine it with a pinch or two of salt, pepper, ground cumin, paprika, chilli and a tablespoon of chopped, fresh mint.
Full Recipe
Find the full list of ingredients, instructions, and a nutritional breakdown below. If you have questions or cook this recipe, please let me know in the comments, and make sure to rate this recipe so it’s easy for others to find.
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Slow-Cooked Lamb Shoulder With Blackcurrant Glaze & Spiced Yogurt
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg lamb shoulder 3 lbs. off the bone (no joint)
For the lamb marinade
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds
- 3 large garlic cloves finely shopped or grated
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1/4 cup olive oil
For the onions and glaze
- 3 medium brown onions cut into wedges
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 cups blackcurrant and apple juice
- 2 tablespoons raw honey
Instructions
- I like to cut the lamb shoulder into a thick, flat piece of meat or even large chunks. Rub the lamb with the marinade and set side for a couple of hours to infuse with flavours.
- Preheat the oven to 160° C (320° F).
- Place the onion wedges on the bottom of a large roasting tray. Drizzle with two tablespoons of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with salt. Place the lamb on top.
- Pour the blackcurrant juice on the bottom of the tray and cover the whole thing with aluminium foil, leaving a little hole in the corner.
- Cook in the 160° C (320° F) oven for 4 hours, basting the meat with the juices a few times. After 4 hours hours, remove the tray and carefully pour most of the cooking juice out into a medium saucepan or a frying pan. This time, loosely cover the lamb with foil, turn the oven to 200° C (400° F) and cook it for a further 20-25 minutes to brown it.
- In the meantime, add 2 tablespoons of honey to the lamb and blackcurrant juice and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to simmer and cook for 20-25 minutes until it's reduced by half and thickened to a glaze.
- Remove the lamb from the oven and let it rest under foil for 10 minutes before serving it on a platter or a chopping board topped with the caramelised onions and the glaze drizzled over the top.
This sounds incredible! Lamb is my favourite meat (probably something to do with growing up on a sheep farm… we ate a LOT of lamb!).
Wow! Had this for dinner last night with two friends and it was superb.
This was soooooooooooooooooo good! I made it a lazy way though so I will definitely have to try the original recipe as well.
I place everything in a crock pot-
I bought a leg of lamb and had the butcher cut it in half fit perfectly into the big crock pot I had put all the same spices (excluded the honey) filled equal portions of the blackcurrant and apple juice then put the rest water which was not much I think it was about 6 cups of juice and small amount water.
next day I grilled up the onions and made mashed turnips
layer technique starting at the bottom
-put a layer of mashed turnips in a bowl
-The meat
-and top with the grill onions
–Its so amazing it tastes like it was made from a fancy restaurant and it was easy! 😀
I reused the liquid to cook some more lamb the next day
and the next day I cooked up some veggies in it (couldn’t waste all the marrow in the liquid)
another good combo is sweet potato puree on the bottom… yum I think its so good together since its a perfect balance between sweet (grilled onions and root vegetables) with sour the meat amazing…
-Thank you so much thinking about making this for thanksgiving! 😀
Thanks for your tips 🙂
Hi there,
this looks delicious – I was thinking of making it on the weekend, but just wanted to know whether you could cook it in a slow cooker instead of the oven?
Thank you!
Yes, you can make it in a slow cooker but I recommend to stick in a really hot oven or under the grill for 10-20 minutes at the end to brown the top.