Roast leg of lamb recipe--copied and pasted

Roast Leg of Lamb Faith DurandSenior Vice President of Content updated Nov 11, 2024 (55) Read reviews!

Everything you need to know to roast a perfectly cooked leg of lamb for your holiday meal.

Serves10

Prep15 minutes Cook1 hour 30 nins

Buy a bone-in leg of lamb. It’s extra flavorful! While you’re at it, ask for your meat to be “market weight” and ask the butcher if they will trim it for you.

Skip the marinade. There’s no need to marinate a leg of lamb because the cut of meat is tender enough.

Cook it to medium-rare. It’s recommended to roast a leg of lamb at 325°F and to cook it to medium-rare to medium (this would be about 20 to 25 minutes per pound on average). Broil it first. To properly roast, rub the lamb with seasonings, broil it on both sides, top with rosemary and garlic, and then roast (covered loosely with foil) for about an hour. Why You’ll Love It It’s surprisingly easy to make. -- Credit: Joe Lingeman What Is a Leg of Lamb? -- Bone-in is best for the flavor. Think of how we make stock from bones, Smith said. The bones hold so much of the flavor. When you roast a piece of meat with the bone still in, you are getting all that flavor in the meat itself. A bone-in lamb leg can be a little trickier to carve, but we opted for bone-in in this cooking lesson (don’t worry; we’ll show you how to carve it). If you are really nervous about carving meat, boneless is fine; it’s easier to slice. If you buy a boneless leg of lamb, it will probably come in a net. When the bone is removed from the lamb, the meat needs to be held together in the shape of the leg for cooking, so heatproof, oven-safe netting is usually used. If your netting isn’t oven-safe, you can tie it up with kitchen twine instead (or ask your butcher to do it for you!). Credit: Joe Lingeman Helpful Tips at the Butcher -- Credit: Joe Lingeman Key Ingredients for Roast Leg of Lamb

Bone-in leg of lamb: Though bone-in can be trickier to carve, it adds more flavor to the dish.

Garlic: Adds a buttery seasoning on top of the lamb just before it goes in the oven. Rosemary sprigs: Adds a rich, aromatic flavor to the leg of lamb.

Olive oil, salt, and pepper: This serves as the rub over the leg of lamb. Credit: The Kitchn Roasting Temperature and Doneness

Personal preference should determine how long you cook your leg of lamb. Personally, I find rare and bloody lamb to be unappetizing. I prefer medium-rare to medium — still tender, with a hint of pink.

We calibrated our cooking lesson to this stage of doneness, but consult the cooking chart if you like your lamb done differently. I will say that such a large cut of meat will probably have some variability; parts of the lamb leg were a little closer to medium, and others were closer to rare.

Roasting Temperature: 325°F

Rare: 115°F to 120°F (about 15 minutes per pound)

Medium-Rare: 120°F to 125°F (about 20 minutes per pound)

Medium: 130°F to 135°F (about 22 minutes per pound)

Medium-Well: 140°F to 145°F (about 25 minutes per pound)

Well-Done: 150°F to 155°F (about 30 minutes per pound) All of these cooking times take into account the fact that we broil the lamb first to sear it. They also assume a resting period of at least 15 minutes, during which the lamb actually continues cooking internally. It’s best, especially if you like rare or medium-rare lamb, to take it out at a lower temperature than those officially recommended by the USDA. This show-stopping roast pairs well with a number of side dishes. Here are a few of our favorites. Mashed Potatoes Roasted Green Beans Dauphinoise Potatoes Spanakopita Kale Salad Lemon Butter Melting Potatoes Tester’s Notes A bone-in leg of lamb always surprises me with how easy it is to roast. This cut of lamb is so flavorful that all it needs is some garlic and rosemary. It may seem like a large piece of meat, but it’s great as a holiday table centerpiece or a hearty dinner on a weekend that leaves you with leftovers for sandwiches or salads for the week. Carving a leg of lamb is actually easier than carving a whole chicken, and we’ve added some more photos to walk you through the whole process so that you have a beautiful serving platter of perfect lamb slices when you’re all done. – Christine, November 2018 (55) Read reviews! Roast Leg of Lamb Recipe Prep time 15 minutes Cook time 1 hour 30 minutes Serves 10 Nutritional Info Ingredients 1 (5 to 7 pound) bone-in leg of lamb 3 tablespoons olive oil Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 6 cloves garlic, minced Leaves from 3 fresh rosemary sprigs, coarsely chopped (about 1 tablespoon) Instructions Show Images Take the leg of lamb out of the refrigerator about an hour before cooking so it comes closer to room temperature. This promotes faster, more even cooking. Set the lamb in a rack inside a roasting pan. Drizzle with 3 tablespoons olive oil and rub all over into the fat and meat. Season generously all over with salt and pepper. Position the lamb so that it is fat-side down. Arrange an oven rack so that the top of the lamb is a few inches from the broiler element. Heat the broiler. Broil until the surface of the lamb looks seared and browned, about 5 minutes. Flip the leg over and put back under the broiler until the other side is seared, about 5 minutes more. Take the lamb out of the oven. Turn off the broiler and set the oven temperature to 325°F. Reposition the oven rack to the middle of the oven. Rub the top of the lamb with 6 cloves of minced garlic and 1 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh rosemary. Tent the pan loosely with aluminum foil to keep the garlic and rosemary from burning. Put the lamb back in the oven and roast for 1 hour. Uncover the lamb. Take its temperature with an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part not touching bone. The lamb is ready when the temperature is 135°F or above. At 135°F the lamb is cooked to rare, but it will continue cooking as it rests, so we recommend taking it out of the oven at 135°F for medium-rare to medium. (Refer to the cooking chart above for general roasting times.) If the lamb is not ready, continue cooking uncovered until it reaches your desired internal temperature, checking the temperature every 20 minutes. Let the lamb rest for at least 15 minutes before carving. Transfer the lamb to a clean cutting board. The bone runs through the meat at an angle, giving you two fairly big pieces of meat on either side of the bone. Start with the side of meat that feels most accessible to you. Make straight, parallel cuts straight down through the thickest part of the meat until you hit the bone. You should be cutting perpendicular to the bone, across the grain of the meat. The slices will still be attached where they meet the bone. Turn your knife so that it's now parallel to the bone instead of perpendicular. Starting at the end of the bone furthest from you, cut through the slices where they attach to the bone. Keep your knife close to the bone so you get as much meat as possible, but don't worry about getting every single scrap of meat right now — just focus on cutting cleanly through the big slices and you’ll get any leftover pieces later. Place the slices on a serving platter. Tent the platter with foil to keep the meat warm. Recipe Notes To serve: We highly recommend serving the lamb with mint pesto. Storage: Leftover lamb can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Freezing: Freeze leftover rare to medium-rare lamb in slices wrapped in foil. To warm them, put the frozen slices, still wrapped, in a 350°F oven. This will warm them and not overc