Slow Cooker Lamb Chops with Tomato, Rosemary & Thyme is a great recipe to change up how you eat lamb forequarter chops. Especially great when your butcher has them out on special!
Slow Cooker Lamb Chops with Tomato, Rosemary & Thyme
This is one of those great, prep in the morning, chuck in the oven type dinners that I love. Anything to ease the witching hour craziness, especially now both kids are at school and doing after school sports. I actually made this up to compensate for the last few dinners of hotdogs and pizzas, feeling the need for a really nourishing, veggie filled dinner. I had some beef bone broth in the freezer so used that instead of the chicken stock to really boost the nutrients.
After coming back from our 3 week road trip, my bank balance has taken a hit, so I am focussing on budget friendly, bulk cook recipes that I can fill my fridge and freezer with so I don’t need to do a full grocery shop every week. This recipe was great as a pasta sauce for the kids and served over creamy polenta for me. I froze in pasta sauce portions used the leftovers to make small Shepherd’s Pies.
I managed to put this together in the morning (since getting the kids pet bunnies I have become an early riser, I get up and let them run around the house before they go to sleep for the day), put it in the oven for a couple of hours in the morning then just turned the oven back on to warm up before dinner. It tastes even better the next day!
Step 1
Seal the lamb chops in a hot pan. Then pan fry the bacon and veggies until they just start to caramelise. Deglaze the pan with red wine.
Step 2
Add the remaining ingredients and the lamb, cover and cook in the oven for 2 hours, until the meat falls apart.
Slow Cooked Lamb Chops
Ingredients
- 5 lamb forequarter chops
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 100g bacon, diced
- 1 brown onion, diced
- 1 clove garlic, finely diced
- 2 carrots, diced
- 1 stick celery, diced
- 3/4 cup red wine
- 4 tomatoes, diced
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 500ml passata
- 1 cup chicken broth or stock
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 sprigs thyme
- 2 sprigs rosemary
- 2 sprigs oregano
Instructions
Pre heat oven to 160°C.
Add half the oil to a frypan over high med-heat and brown the chops on each side. You just want to seal them, don’t cook through. Set these aside.
Add the remaining oil and the bacon, onion, garlic, carrots and celery and cook for 5-7 minutes until they just start to caramelise.
Pour in the red wine to deglaze any sticky bits off the bottom of the pan, bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes.
Place the lamb into a large casserole dish with a lid, top with the bacon mixture, tomatoes, stock and herbs, cover and cook for 2 hours.
Stir occasionally and add a little water or more stock if it starts to look too dry.
Once cooked, carefully lift out the lamb chops onto a plate. Shred the meat with a fork and discard the bones. Be careful no bones have been left in the sauce. Remove any stalks from the herbs.
Serve with pasta, polenta or mashed potato and sprinkled with fresh parsley.
Notes
If your kids don’t like chunky vegetables in their sauce (like mine), blend together the bacon mixture and tomatoes before adding to the casserole dish, then cook as per the recipe.
If you don’t have all those herbs easily available, use dried or just leave out the ones you don’t have.
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