How to cook lamb: our guide to choosing your cut to the perfect roast - How To

Apr 17, 2025

Baa-rilliant advice for a roast with the most.

Is it even Easter if you’re not serving up a lamb roast? Sure, maybe not if you’re a vegetarian, but for many Australian families, lamb and Easter go hand in hoof like Christmas and prawns, or elections and democracy sausages.

So if you’re planning on serving up a lamb roast for your nearest and dearest this Easter, you’ll be wanting it to turn out just right. Luckily, we have just the expert advice you need to pull off a truly ewe-tiful Easter roast.

Credit: Alan Jensen

Which lamb cut to choose

The leg of lamb with mint sauce and all the trimmings is the Aussie classic, but it isn’t the only cut worth considering. For chef and restaurateur Matt Moran, there’s another cut that always makes for a special Easter spread.

“A lamb shoulder is hard to beat – rubbed with garlic, rosemary, lemon zest and olive oil,” he says. “I always go for lamb with good marbling and a bit of fat for flavour. Cook it low and slow, let it rest, and you’ve got a beautiful dish. It’s perfect for leftovers the next day, too.”

You could also try Moran’s slow-roasted lamb shoulder with beetroot and mint salsa.

Butcher, chef and meat ambassador for Endeavor Meats, Darren O’Rourke, agrees that both shoulder and leg are great cuts for a big get-together, but also suggests some other alternatives.

“If you take a rolled loin, like a double loin, and bone it out and roll it up into a roast,” he says. “And outside of that, it’s starting to get cooler, so you could throw in braised dishes, whether it’s fore or hindquarter shanks.”

delicious. Food Director Lucy Nunes offers up some other options that will not only taste great, they’ll be kind on your wallet, too.

“Lamb neck and lamb shanks are also great options” she says. “They’re not as expensive as other cuts. There’s not as much meat on the neck, but it’s on the bone – the more bone, the more flavour, juiciness and tenderness. The neck and shanks are both great for slow cooking – the neck has some of the best marbling that you’ll find on lamb, and it’s rich with collagen, which breaks down to create a delicious sauce. They’re not large, but you can roast more than one at a time.”

For lamb necks, try Colin Fassnidge’s lamb neck roast with rough-cut chermoula. For shanks, try Nunes’ slow-cooked lamb shank couscous.

Credit: Mark Roper

How to cook the perfect roast lamb

Before you cook your lamb, always make sure that you take the meat out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature first. Otherwise, you might end up with a piece of meat that’s nicely cooked on the outside, but still cold in the middle.

“My number-one rule for roasting is to let the meat come to room temperature before cooking; it ensures even cooking and a perfect roast,” Moran says.

What if you’ve never cooked a big lamb roast before? It’s not as daunting a prospect as you might believe.

“If you’re scared of cooking a big piece of lamb, slow cooking is the way to go,” Nunes says. “You can’t overcook it. And you can also cook it in advance and then heat it up in the oven later.”

Slow-cooking your lamb guarantees melt-in-the-mouth, fall-from-the-bone tender meat. The best cuts for slow cooking are the neck, shanks and shoulder. Try Andy Hearndon’s 7-hour lamb shoulder, or Ella Mittas’ slow-cooked lamb shoulder.

Rosemary and mustard roast lamb leg with mint sauce

How long to cook roast lamb

For a boneless rolled and tied lamb roast cooked to medium, cook for 25 minutes per 500g at 180°C/160°C fan-forced.

If you’re cooking lamb with the bone in cooked to medium, cook for 30 minutes per 500g at 180°C/160°C fan-forced.

Credit: Ben Dearnley

How to tell when lamb is done

The most reliable way to tell when a lamb roast has cooked to your desired level of doneness is to use a meat thermometer. Australian Lamb recommends measuring the centre of your lamb for these temperatures:

Rare 60°C
Medium rare 60-65°C
Medium 65-70°C
Medium well done 70°C
Well done 75°C

If you’re doing a slow cook, the test is how easy the meat is to shred. It should be soft and easily fall apart.

But for a seasoned cook, like Nunes, a meat thermometer might not be necessary: “If I’m roasting lamb to be nice and pink, I never use a thermometer,” she says. “I just insert a skewer into the centre and then place the tip of the skewer just below my lower lip, which is quite sensitive. If it’s hot, I know it’s going to be ready.

“And remember that lamb is not like chicken or pork, where the juices need to run clear. With lamb, if it comes out pink, it’s okay – you probably want it that way, if you’re not slow cooking. And as you rest it, it continues to cook.”

Credit: Chris Court

Why should meat rest after cooking?

Resting meat doesn’t just give you time to get all your other sides and sauces ready. It’s an important part of the cooking process. It allows the meat juices to settle, ensuring, tender, juicy meat.

“The analogy I always use is, imagine if you jumped into an ice bath,” O’Rourke says. “All the blood in your extremities rushes straight to your internal organs, where it needs to be. Now, obviously, we’re looking at the opposite end of the temperature spectrum, but if you take a piece of meat and put it into the oven, all of that moisture does the same thing. It’s trying to run away from the heat source. So it all goes to the centre of the roast, and it stays there.

“Now, when you pull a lamb roast out of the oven to rest, two things are going to happen – you’re going to get a temperature rise of about one degree per minute for the next five minutes. But the other thing is, all of that moisture that’s right in the centre, it’s like, ‘Oh, the coast is clear. The heat source is gone. We can go back to where we came from.’ So it disperses back to the extremities of the meat.

“The point is that if you don’t rest the meat, it hasn’t finished cooking.”

As a general rule, O’Rourke rests his meat for a third of the cooking time, up to a maximum of 30 minutes.

Related story: 59 last-minute Easter recipes to save the day

Best flavour pairings for lamb

Beyond the mint sauce, Nunes recommends herbs like sage and rosemary, perhaps with a touch of citrus. She’s also a fan of Moran’s roast lamb with a mustard crust. Lamb’s stronger flavour also makes it a great meat to pair with spices – think Indian and Moroccan flavours.

“I often do a lamb roast with Moroccan spices,” she says. “Lots of garlic, thyme, ground cumin, ground coriander, a little bit of cinnamon, and I make a butter and oil paste and rub it all over the lamb, then slow cook that for hours. I like to do that with shanks, because you have that delicious meat on the bone, with all that yummy collagen. And then everyone can have one each, or you can share. You could also do that with a leg or shoulder, on the bone.”

Related story: 45 foolproof mains for an easy Easter lunch

Roast lamb with saffron and tandoori spices

Credit: Mark Roper

Why do we eat lamb at Easter?

Serving lamb at Easter is a long-held Christian tradition. It stems from Jesus being known as the ‘lamb of God’. Because of this, lamb is seen as a symbol of purity, innocence and sacrifice. But sacrificial lamb is also mentioned in the Old Testament. In the Jewish faith, lamb is served at Passover – which is also held around this time of year. This celebrates when the Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt. In Exodus, at the first Passover, Israelites were told to slaughter a lamb, paint their front doors with its blood, and then roast it and eat it. When God ‘passed over’ that night, he knew which houses to spare when he came through with the 10th and final plague, which took out the first-born son of every Egyptian, and finally convinced the Pharaoh to set the Israelites free.

Things were pretty violent in those days.

Lambs are also associated with springtime, and while it isn’t spring here in Australia during Easter, it is in the Northern Hemisphere, where many of our culinary traditions come from.