10 To Cook: Lamb Recipes for Your Easter Lunch Centrepiece

For some, Easter without lamb is like Easter without chocolate or hot cross buns – a bit of a travesty. Although the tradition stems from the northern hemisphere, where lamb starts to hit its peak in spring, it’s one that’s continued Down Under even as the weather begins to cool.

Here we’ve collected a slate of lamb recipes that’ll feed a table of family and friends, sourced from top local chefs like Mark Best, Andrew McConnell and Analiese Gregory. While some hew to tradition – roasted legs and shoulders – others bring something different to the plate, including Best’s lamb with beetroot salad and Gregory and Clayton Wells’s Davidson’s plum glaze. Check them out below, or find more Easter-ready recipes here.

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Meatsmith’s roast leg of lamb

The beauty of Meatsmith ’s roast leg of lamb lies in the quality of the meat itself; the only other ingredients are oil and salt, so you’ll want to spring for the best bit of lamb you can afford. Then, you can simply rub it with oil and salt, whack it in the oven and Easter lunch is sorted.

Stalactites’ oven-baked lamb and potatoes lemonato

In Greece, Orthodox families often spit-roast an entire lamb with lemony potatoes sewn into its belly to celebrate Easter. If a spit roast is a step too far, Melbourne institution Stalactites has replicated those flavours in its far more approachable oven-baked lamb recipe.

Mark Best’s roast lamb with beetroot and chicory salad

If you’re looking for a little more complexity in your Easter dish, turn to Mark Best’s roast lamb recipe. Here he brings an umami punch with a soy, chilli and ginger marinade that’s offset by a salad of sweet beetroot and bitter chicory.

Chiswick’s Moran family lamb shoulder

When Sydney restaurant Chiswick serves lamb, diners know exactly where it came from: chef-proprietor Matt Moran’s own farm in the NSW Central Tablelands. Regardless of where you’re sourcing your lamb from, you can trust that this recipe – with a zesty mint salsa and juniper-based brine for extra juiciness – will do it justice.

Cumulus Inc’s whole slow-roasted lamb shoulder

For more than 15 years, Melbourne’s Cumulus Inc has served this lamb shoulder, firmly establishing it as one of the Andrew McConnell-led restaurant’s signatures. The combination of a punchy marinade and a long, slow cooking time results in fall-off-the-bone flesh and a caramelised crust that’ll be a sure-fire winner at Easter lunch.

Scott Pickett’s roast lamb shoulder

Scott Pickett, of Melbourne’s Estelle, reckons this lamb shoulder recipe is foolproof – as long as you buy quality lamb and season and cook it well. By searing it at the start you’ll be sure to get a beautifully caramelised exterior to complement the tender, juicy flesh.

Shane Delia’s butterflied lamb leg with kale salad

Fire up the barbie: Shane Delia’s recipe puts a spin on tradition with butterflied, barbequed lamb bolstered with a zingy kale and currant salad. This one is perfect for the time-poor; unlike some of the roasts in this collection, which take more than six hours in the oven, it requires just 25 minutes on the grill.

The Paddington’s lamb chops with salsa verde

Lamb and Mediterranean flavours are great bedfellows. In Ben Greeno’s accessible recipe, capers, herbs and anchovies zhoosh up lamb chops that require only minutes over heat before they’re ready for the table.

Mike McEnearney’s pot-roasted lamb shoulder with onions, thyme and tapenade

Delicious, nurturing food is Mike McEnearney’s trademark. This recipe by the chef-proprietor of Sydney’s Kitchen By Mike is emblematic of that: it involves a whole lamb’s shoulder pot-roasted with other wholesome ingredients like onions and herbs, and is amped up with a rosemary tapenade to finish.

Analiese Gregory and Clayton Wells’s Davidson’s plum-glazed lamb ribs

Eating lamb at Easter might be a tradition inherited from the northern hemisphere, but why not give it a bit of an antipodean twist by glazing it in Davidson’s plum, à la Analiese Gregory and Clayton Wells? It gives a little tangy flavour to the meat that’s balanced out with brown sugar, sherry vinegar and bush tomato.

Sara Oteri’s Vietnamese caramel lamb with quinoa and slaw

The punchy flavours ubiquitous in Vietnam are the perfect foil to the powerful taste of lamb. Give your classic Easter lamb a Vietnamese spin with a fish sauce-based caramel and sides of fluffy quinoa and crunchy slaw with a zippy sriracha and lime dressing.

Looking for more Easter recipes? Visit Broadsheet ’s Easter recipe collection.