Want a really easy and nutritious dinner with plenty of leftovers for lunch boxes the next day? Try this easy roast lamb with sugar free mint sauce. And while you have the oven on, there are recipes below to make a few baked items for the weeks ahead.
Part of being successful at low carb is being organised and planning ahead.
Easy Roast Lamb With Sugar Free Mint Sauce
I am lucky to live in New Zealand where our lamb is the finest in the world and is relatively affordable. When prices drop further, I buy leg roasts and freeze them for the winter. This recipe can easily be adapted to butterflied lamb, lamb steaks or lamb chops.
Lamb is such a wonderfully fatty and tasty meat. People forget that many of our old favourite family meals can still be made, we just have to change the side dishes that accompany it. Low carb cooking really is simple whole food, cooked simply and enjoyed together as a family.
Firstly choose a roasting tray that will be appropriate for the size of lamb you are about to cook. Find some fresh mint and rosemary. You can substitute dried herbs but it really is phenomenally better with fresh.
I grow these fresh herbs in my garden, but they can be grown on your windowsill if you don’t have a veggie patch. I don’t do any pre cooking or cooking at high temperatures then lower it, I want my roast lamb to be an easy mid week dinner. Set and forget. I’m too busy baking other items to mess about with temperatures or basting (spooning oil over the lamb).
This is exactly the traditional mint sauce recipe that I grew up with (just minus the sugar). My mother would get fresh mint from the garden, add sugar to draw out the oils from the mint leaves, then add the vinegar.
Today many people have never tried traditional mint sauce, just the ‘mint jelly’ available in supermarkets. You can add stevia, but this is optional. I realise it may be a step too far just to have the vinegar taste with no sweetness, personally I prefer it without sweetener.
Always add according to your taste and your preference (and I don’t want a thousand comments saying it was too sweet/not sweet enough 😉 ).
Easy Roast Lamb With Sugar Free Mint Sauce
Ingredients
Roast Lamb
- 1 kg leg of lamb on the bone
- handful fresh rosemary
- salt to taste
Sugar Free Mint Sauce
- handful fresh mint
- 125 ml vinegar
- 1 tsp granulated sweetener of choice optional
Instructions
Sugar Free Mint Sauce
- Chop the fresh mint as finely as you can. Put in a small glass and pour on the vinegar and sweetener (optional).
- Mix together with a fork and allow to infuse while you cook the roast lamb.
Roast Lamb
- Remove the leg of lamb from the fridge while you pre heat the oven.
- Place the leg of lamb on an oiled roasting dish.
- Dry the top of the roast with paper towels.
- With a sharp knife, make small cuts into the meat and press pieces of fresh rosemary into the cuts.
- Sprinkle with a moderate amount of salt (not to excess) over the entire top of the meat.
- Roast at 180C/350F for the following times.
Well done lamb 30 minutes per 450g/ 1 lb plus 30 minutes.,
- Whichever way you choose to cook your lamb, always remove the meat from the oven, cover with foil and a few tea towels to keep warm for 10 minutes. This allows the meat to relax and the juices to settle.
Notes
Fresh Rosemary And Fresh Mint From My Garden
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- Roast lamb Prepared With Fresh Herbs
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- Roasted Lamb Resting
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- Sugar Free Mint Sauce
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- Sliced And Ready To Eat
These are some great vegetable side options to serve with easy roast lamb with sugar free mint sauce ::
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- Mashed Cauliflower
Whenever I have the oven on to cook a roast dinner, I always utilise the empty space and cook extra dishes. This is an example of what I usually make to be prepared for the weeks ahead.
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- Ham & Egg Cups
Anisah says
Hi.
Lovely recipe. Being Australian, we eat lots of lamb.
One question is why use any type of sweetener in the mint sauce?
We have made our own mint sauce for years simply by putting dried mint into white vinegar and keeping it in it a glass bottle. We have added a little green food colouring from time to time, but NEVER sugar or any sweetener. We have never needed it.
Perhaps we put sugar into less cooking than in the USA?
Just a thought
A wonderful site
Anisah
Libby www.ditchthecarbs.com says
I am in NZ and I grew up enjoying loads of kiwi lamb (of course 😉 ) and my mother always made our mint sauce using mint leaves, sugar and vinegar. American readers are used to mint jelly which is really sweet. The sweetener is optional, so feel free to omit it. Mint and vinegar are beautiful and fresh by themselves, so go for it.
A says
Why is the lamb cooking weight entered as pounds? 🙂
Libby www.ditchthecarbs.com says
The conversions are for all my American followers 🙂
shelleypc says
Yum, this will be fabulous for New Years dinner. Thanks 🙂
Anna Funnell says
I have to say, I make mint sauce the way my Mum has always made it: literally just vinegar and mint. I’d never have thought of adding sugar to it anyway! 🙂
Libby www.ditchthecarbs.com says
It’s lovely isn’t it? A very clean and light addition to lamb.