Honestly, slow cooking is one of my favourite ways to cook – not only does it lets flavours develop slowly and meld together beautifully… It’s so easy to make some of the most affordable cuts of meat absolutely melt in your mouth.
But on the flip side, I also love pressure cooking – when i’m low on time but I still want to be able to serve up something tasty for the family with those affordable meats too.
This recipe is not only easy to convert from slow to pressure cooking (depending obviously on what you have at home) – it’s packed with flavour, nutritious with multiple almost-hidden veggies and will feed a family of 4 with leftovers with ease.
Naturally gluten and dairy free – freezes like an absolute dream.
Braised Lamb Shanks
Whether you choose to slow cook or pressure cook, this Italian inspired braised lamb is the perfect dish to share with loved ones.
Equipment
- Large Pressure or Slow Cooker
Ingredients
- 4 lamb shanks approx 800g-1kg, depends on individual weight/size
- 1 large onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 stalks of celery diced finely
- 2 carrots diced
- 1 zucchini diced
- 1 eggplant diced
- 1 cup of red wine
- 1 cup dried brown lentils rinsed and drained
- 2 cans of diced tomatoes
- 1 cup beef bone broth
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil or ghee for browning
- Handful of fresh parsley chopped finely
Instructions
- Season your lamb shanks well with salt and pepper whilst you preheat a large pot on medium/high (or preheat your slow cooker/pressure cooker if it has a sear function). Place the shanks in and sear them off for a minute on each side to get a bit of caramelization. Note you may need to do 2 at a time, depending on the size of your pot/cooker.
- When they’re evenly browned on each side, remove the lamb shanks from the pot/cooker and turn the heat down to medium.
- Add your diced onion, garlic, carrot and celery to the pot/cooker with a drizzle of olive oil/ghee to caramelize for a minute.
- Now add the zucchini and eggplant in and also pour in the red wine to deglaze the bottom of the pot.
- If you were using a pot on the stove, now transfer all of the contents into the slow/pressure cooker.
- Add the dried lentils, diced tomatoes, beef broth and brown sugar - then stir well to combine.
- Place the lamb shanks into the liquid and set your slow cooker to 8 hours or low OR set your pressure cooker to 45 minutes on high.
- When the pressure cooker finishes, allow the pressure to naturally release over 15 minutes.
- Serve the braised lamb shanks, vegetables and lentil stew with either mashed potatoes or brown rice on the side.
