Tender Oven Roasted Rack of Lamb

Perfectly pink and tender meat inside with a gorgeous golden crust. You will love this classic recipe for oven roasted rack of lamb.

 

Before you attempt this oven roasted rack of lamb, it’s helpful to understand the cut we are using! Rack of lamb is the section of backstrap with the ribs still attached. Literally, it’s the same cut as prime rib in beef, just waaaaaay smaller. Teeny tiny by comparison, really. The problem for meat buyers like us, is that there are so many stages of cleaning up a lamb rack and that all depends on how your butcher chooses to do it. They may french the rack, where the meat and fat are scraped away from the bones for a much cleaner appearance. They may remove the fat cap altogether. They may leave it over the meat but cut it from the bones. They may trim the cap so it’s there, but just thinner. Cap on, off, frenched or untrimmed will also make a difference to both the final weight and cook time of your lamb. And that’s why a quality meat thermometer is an indispensable tool.

We know that for beef, the reverse sear method is a great way to get perfectly medium rare meat every time. Lamb is a much more forgiving protein because it’s much smaller. So you can blast it in a hot oven to develop color and still make sure it’s cooked evenly throughout. As you can see above, I used a particularly fatty rack to demonstrate this recipe. You can see the entire fat cap is still intact. And I get it, this much fat may not be your jam. Don’t fret – if you have purchased a cap on lamb rack roast, and you’re not into fat, you have two options. One – attempt to trim the cap yourself before cooking, leaving only a quarter to eighth of an inch around the eye meat. Or two – cook the lamb according to my recipe below, but pull it at 100f. Then slice it into individual cutlets and sear them in a hot pan for a few minutes on each side. This “twice cooked” method gets you extra browny bits, and helps render the fat down.

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