Which cut of lamb should I buy?
Leg, shoulder, rack, chump, neck fillet, shank and breast — where each sits on the animal and which of the two completely different lamb destinations each one suits.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 10 min
- Read
- 3 min
Short answer
Leg, rack, loin and chump are fast-roast or grill cuts, served pink. Shoulder, neck, shank and breast are slow cuts that want three hours or more and are served falling apart. Lamb has two good destinations, pink and pulled, and everything goes wrong in the middle ground between them.
Lamb is the clearest illustration of the working-muscle rule, because the animal is small enough that the cuts are easy to place. The front end and the lower legs worked; the back and the top of the hind leg did not. The map shows the split.
Step by step
- Leg: the classic pink roast.The whole hind leg, sold bone-in, half — as the fillet end or the shank end — or boned and butterflied. Tender, lean-ish, and best roasted to a pink centre. Butterflied leg is the best thing on a barbecue because the varied thickness gives everyone the doneness they want.
- Rack or best end: the small, fast, expensive one.The rib section, usually French-trimmed. Very tender, very quick, and easy to overcook because it is small. A whole rack feeds two. Two racks interlocked make a guard of honour.
- Loin and chump: the steak end of lamb.Loin chops are the little T-bones from the back. Chump is behind them, at the top of the leg, sold as chops or a small boneless joint. Both are grill or pan cuts, cooked to pink and rested.
- Shoulder: the best value and the best slow roast.Hard-working, fatty, full of collagen and connective tissue. Slow-roasted for four to five hours it pulls apart with a spoon and tastes of far more than a leg. Roasted fast to pink it is chewy and greasy. Also the correct cut for dicing into a curry or a stew.
- Neck fillet and middle neck: stewing and quick-cooking, confusingly.Neck fillet is a boneless cylinder that can be seared and served pink like a mini loin, or diced for a stew. Middle neck and scrag are on the bone, cheap, and are what a proper Lancashire hotpot or Irish stew is made of.
- Shank: one per person, always slow.The lower foreleg or hind leg. Almost pure collagen and bone. Braised for two and a half to three hours it is one of the best things you can put in front of someone, and it portions itself.
- Breast: the cheapest cut on the animal.Fatty, thin and layered. Slow-roasted for hours until the fat renders and the outside crisps, or boned, rolled and braised. Ignored by almost everyone and very good.
Tips
- Lamb fat sets hard and unpleasantly when it cools, so slow-cooked lamb dishes want their fat skimmed, and lamb is better served genuinely hot than warm.
- Hogget and mutton are older animals — stronger flavoured, cheaper, and they need noticeably longer cooking. Worth seeking out for slow dishes.
- New season lamb in spring is milder and leaner; autumn lamb has more fat and more flavour. Neither is better, but they cook slightly differently.
Common mistakes
- Roasting a shoulder to a pink centre — Shoulder is a collagen cut. At pink temperatures the collagen has not converted and the meat is rubbery. It needs to go far past pink, to the point where it falls apart.
- Buying a leg to make a curry or a stew — Lean leg meat dries and shreds into strings in long cooking. Diced shoulder costs less and is far better in anything slow.
Questions people ask
Which lamb cut is best for a barbecue?
A butterflied leg. It is thick at one end and thin at the other, so it cooks to a range of donenesses over a two-zone fire, and it slices across the grain naturally.
What is lamb neck fillet good for?
Both extremes. Seared hard and served pink in slices, or diced and stewed for an hour and a half. It is one of the few lamb cuts that genuinely works either way.