Greek Style Lamb Breast

Lamb shoulder, lamb chops, leg of lamb? Check! Lamb breast? My Greek family never cooked this cut of lamb meat, so when I saw lamb breast at my local big box grocery store, I thought it was lamb shoulder! Big mistake. But, a fortunate mistake. Confused? I'll explain.

Lamb breast is an inexpensive cut because there's so much (SO MUCH) fat layered between the meat. Don't despair--this is why lamb breast is always cooked low and slow (two hours) which causes the fat to melt into the pan. What's left is the meat with a tiny bit of fat for flavor. Once this step of the cooking process is done, you can crank up the heat in the oven and cook it further for browning, you can put it on a hot grill or you can broil it. Here's my recipe.

This cut is actually from the belly, with some of the breastplate and ribs attached--similar to the St. Louis-style pork ribs. Making diagonal slits on the fatty side (not the bone side) allows the marinade to go deep, which is why you can marinate the meat from two to 24 hours.

If you've wanted to try cooking lamb, but you didn't want to invest a lot of money, seek out lamb breast, and try my recipe. Pair it with a simple green salad, or go Greek and serve it with a traditional Greek/Horiatiki salad. Try my easy recipe. You can find it here.

That's the rendered fat in the pan.

Cutting diagonal slits gives deeper flavor throughout the lamb.