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How to Grill a Lamb Crown Roast ~ we take a French cut lamb rack, cut shallow slits between each bone and then tie it up into a crown with a laurel of rosemary sprigs. The lamb rack is slow smoked in a pellet grill until a wonderful rare to medium rare and then served on a platter of fresh cranberries and more rosemary making this dish as pretty as it is delicious.
For my family, we normally focus on beef for the holiday meal. We usually vacillate between beef tenderloin and prime rib. We’ve done each of those more times than I can count. Bone-in prime rib and boneless. We did whiskey peppercorn beef tenderloin. We even did beef tenderloin encrusted in crispy bacon. Recently we did a pork crown roast and made quite a few mistakes.
Well, we decided to give the crown roast another try but this time change things up protein wise and focus on my absolute favorite meat – rack of lamb.
We also did a leg of lamb that would also be perfect for Christmas dinner or a holiday feast. This recipe is an entire meal in a pan. Perfect for a last minute epic feast.
How to Grill a Lamb Crown Roast Ingredients:
- 2 racks of Superior Farms lamb, 8 bones each and frenched
- Salt to taste
- Your favorite BBQ Rub (we used a Greek seasoning)
- 8 sprigs of rosemary
- Butcher’s twine
- Fresh cranberries for garnish
Prep the Lamb Crown Roasts
Start by grabbing a sharp knife and remove any excess fat, particularly any that is hard:
Check out the marbling on the side of that lamb rack from Superior Farms in the pic above. Take your time, I’ll wait.
Next up, flip them over to the bone side of each rack and run that sharp knife between the bones about an inch, creating a vertical slit.
Make sure not to go too deep:
Then stand the lamb rack up and form a circle (and a crown):
If the rack doesn’t quite form a circle, you should be able to make the slits a little deeper or a little farther down the rack to get it to flex more to form that circle.
Keep working the slits deeper and longer until it forms a circle (and a crown) like this:
Now season with salt, as long as the rub doesn’t have too much salt in it.
Then hit it with the BBQ seasoning:
Make sure to work the seasoning down into the slits we created with the knife:
The next step is to form one of the racks of lamb into a crown and then place a sprig of rosemary into each slit we created with the knife:
Then grab a couple lengths of butchers twine and wrap one around the top and tie it off:
Then run another length of twine around the thicker base of the crown:
Now repeat with the other American Lamb Rack:
After working that much with the seasoned lamb, some of that seasoning has come off, so give it another shake of the rub all the way around:
Now we are ready for the grill:
How to Grill a Lamb Crown Roast
Time to prepare the grill for our crown roast. For this, I set my pellet grill for 300F and waited for it to get hot. If you don’t have a pellet smoker or grill, we can do this on a standard charcoal grill. Simply bank the coals to one side and place the crown roasts on the other side with a target temp inside the grill of 300F. Drop some smoke wood over the coals and close the lid. When the crown roasts hit your desired temp, remove from the grill and allow to rest for 5-10 minutes before serving.
Here we have the crown racks of lamb on the Green Mountain Grilles cooker:
This didn’t take long. Our goal here is for the lamb to be between 125F and 135F (rare and medium rare).
The lamb crown roast on the right was a little smaller than the one on the left.
After right at an hour on the pellet grill, the one on the left was at 125F and the one on the right was 135F according to my instant read thermometer.
I’d call that about perfect.
Rare and medium rare. Boom!
Both of these are leaning a bit. Not sure why.
The fresh cranberries are perfect for solving that lean.
Here’s one of the lamb crown roasts:
And yes, that line coming from the bottom of the roast in the pic above is juice leaking out.
Yeah, it was that juicy.
Check the platter below the crown roast in the pic below:
Finally, remove the butchers twine and the brittle rosemary and place on the platter.
Shove a couple cranberries under the sides that are leaning and then place the rest of the cranberries around the base:
But how did it look inside?
And of course I had to give it a taste:
I think those two facial expressions sum the flavor up nicely.
Lamb Crown Roast Recap
First off, that meat lollipop I sampled was from the bigger one that was most definitely a beautiful rare. Also, the rosemary was by no means overpowering. Sure, rosemary can do that, but it was a wonderfully subtle addition to the flavor profile. I could honestly say that this dish would be on the short list for my final meal, should I ever be presented with that option.
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Thank You
I want to thank Superior Farms for partnering with me on this post. I, for one, am a huge fan of American lamb! These racks were soooooo juicy and tender. Not to mention these racks were really meaty. Ridiculously good.
How to Grill a Lamb Crown Roast Recipe card:
How to Grill a Lamb Crown Roast
Ingredients
- 2 Lamb racks, frenched 8 bones each
- Your favorite BBQ seasoning
- Salt to taste
- 16 Sprigs of fresh rosemary
Instructions
- Carve off any excess thick fat, particularly any hard fat
- Cut slits on the back side of the rack between the bones, but don't slice all the way through
- Apply your favorite BBQ seasoning and salt (if needed)
- Bend the rack into a circle, if it doesn't form a circle, then make the slits deeper so the rack bends more
- Once a rack is formed into a circle, place a sprig of rosemary in each slit
- Tie a length of butchers twine near the top of the meat and a second one around the bottom, fatter part of the crown roast
- Repeat the process on the second lamb rack
- Start the grill/smoker and target 300F in the cooking chamber (+/- 25F)
- Place the lamb crown roasts in the smoker and close the lid
- After about an hour at 300F in the heat in smoke, the lamb racks should be near the target internal temperature of the lamb of 125F-135F.
- If you would like to take the lamb to medium or beyond, leave the racks of lamb in the smoker until they hit your desired doneness
- Once the lamb racks reached your desired doneness, remove from the heat and allow to rest for 5-10 minutes
- Cut the butchers twine loose and remove the now brittle rosemary
- Serve on a bed of cranberries for presentation, using a couple fresh cranberries to prop up one side if the racks lean a bit
- Carve into meat lollipops and serve
Video
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