Read Mumsnet users reviews on Love Lamb Week recipes

[EllieMumsnet]

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We’ve got together with Simply Beef & Lamb to find 100 MNers to take part in Love Lamb Week and test out 1 of 5 new lamb recipes. Each tester was sent either: garlic & mustard marinated lamb steaks, lamb caesar salad, lamb leg steaks with a paprika & herb rub, teriyaki lamb stir fry or a quick lamb wrap recipe to try with a loved one.

Here’s what Simply Beef & Lamb have to say: “We’d like to give parents the confidence to cook with lamb midweek, using lamb leg steaks as an easy introduction. They are versatile, relatively low price and can be cooked in less than 30 minutes.”

If you’ve taken part in this test, Simply Beef & Lamb would like you to post on this thread, answering the questions below:

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
• How easy did you find the dish to cook?
• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?
• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

We’d also love to see some photos of the finished #lovelamb dishes and/or the cooking process, so please do share some on the thread if you can!

All those who give the required feedback will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Oops forgot to add my picture.

• Which lamb dish did you cook?

The lamb Caesar salad

Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

Yes! I was sceptical- we both were. We are big Caesar salad fans and have it a lot with chicken, fish & vegetables but never with lamb. It was delicious. I especially enjoyed the dressing. I'd use it again with leftover roast lamb.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Really easy. A lot quicker than a lot of salads I cook.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Perfect for me as I low carb. (I just gave dh and the kids my croutons.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

Really good value as everyone ate it!

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes. To be honest apart from minced lamb & roast lamb I haven't had lamb for ages and it was a good reminder. Plus I'm a bit run down at the moment and it felt good to have a bit of red meat mid week.

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
Lamb Caesar Salad - it was absolutely delicious. I've never made a proper Caesar salad before, although I've eaten it in restaurants, and the dressing was amazing!

How easy did you find the dish to cook?
Very easy - we had it for lunch, and it took literally 10 minutes from start to finish. Would be great for a midweek meal, but would probably need to either allow more lamb per serving, or add crusty bread to make it more filling for dinner rather than lunch.

Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
Yes, mostly - I had less dressing, and fewer croutons than my DH as I felt there was quite a bit of oil in the dressing, but then I'm on a permanent diet and not used to cooking with much oil! However, it's still a much healthier option than most other lunch ideas.

Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value
It was pretty good value - more so if I'd made it for dinner, rather than lunch. The lamb steaks were £4 for 2 so a little cheaper than a similar amount of beef steak for example, but not exactly budget friendly if funds are really tight - would be cheaper to cook a larger joint and have several meals rather than buy the steaks.

Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?
Definitely. I very rarely buy lamb, as I've always thought it was fatty compared to other meats, but I was amazed at how lean and tasty the leg steaks were. I will be buying them again and cooking with them regularly. I love the taste of lamb, but have rarely bought anything other than a lamb joint, or occasionally lamb mince.
I'd buy them again for a quick midweek roast, served with mash, veg & mint sauce!

Having real difficulty uploading photos from a rural French campsite, apologies!

Which lamb dish did you cook?

Lamb leg steaks with herbs and paprika

Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

Very much so. We usually drizzle lamb with mint sauce, which is a tad boring to us now. It was great to introduce other flavours, we thought they were super tasty.

How easy did you find the dish to cook?

It was very easy. This was an added bonus as we have a small baby and dh has a long commute, so it was great that it didn't take too long to prepare and cook.

Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

We had lean leg steaks so these were pretty healthy, as was the salad.

Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

Yes, the lamb was on offer and we were able to use herbs which we already had in the cupboard.

Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Definitely, they were tasty!

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
We cooked the garlic and mustard one. It was delicious!
How easy did you find the dish to cook?
Very. I am not the world's greatest cook and usually find this kind of cooking quite stressful but even I could manage it.
Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
Yes. We had ours with plenty of veg.
Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?
For an occasion meal, yes. For us, it couldn't be a family supper but, for a nice meal for two, I would say it was good value.
Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?
Yes. I had never considered them before but would probably eat them instead of a steak - cheaper and I preferred the taste.

Whoops, almost forgot to post...

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

Quick lamb wraps, they were a big hit, wasn't sure how the mint would go down but it was a big hit.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Very, I'd made the rice and prepared the lamb for cooking while DD napped so it was really quick to put together.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

Lamb is a little more expensive but generally I think anything that gets fully eaten is good value.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes, I didn't consider using lamb during the week before but I would definitely use leg steaks again.

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste? We cooked the teriyaki lamb stir fry dish. The was delicious and enjoyed by myself, husband & 3yr old son. Lamb is our favourite meat so it was great to try a new recipe.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

The dish was quick and easy to prepare and cook

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

I did consider the meal to be pretty healthy but not completely healthy due to the sugar added in. We felt the sugar was unnecessary

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? I did consider the dish good value as there was plenty of food for the 3 of us and could have easily fed 4.

What made it good value? The cost & quantity of the lamb leg steaks

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why? Yes, we would buy it again as the lamb was good value in comparison to other meats and was very easy/versatile to cook.

Thank you for the opportunity 😃👍🏻

I tried the quick lamb wrap

It was fairly simple to make

I think it was about average

I found it rather expensive as the lamb cost a lot

No i wouldn't as it was not worth it for the price and not very filling

• Which lamb dish did you cook?

I had the lamb caesar salad to cook.

Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

Yes it was AMAZING! I was thrilled with how quick it was to cook ( i always thought of lamb as taking a long time to cook but this was ready in minutes!)

The dressing tasted really good - loved the freshness of the parsley in it.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

super duper easy.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes - because it is a salad and not a processed meal.

I made the croutons myself instead of shop bought as it's really easy to make lovely chunky homemade croutons from bread crusts.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

reasonably good value. lamb seems to be more expensive than other meat but it does taste good!

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

yes definitely - i never knew they could be cooked so quickly - now i know that i would cook them again and again!

• We cooked the Garlic and Mustard Marinated Steaks. The whole family (myself, husband and 2 daughters, age 16 and 13) thoroughly enjoyed them.
• The recipe was easy to cook, and used uncomplicated ingredients which I liked.
• I think it is fairly healthy. I'm conscious that we probably eat a little too red meat so try to avoid at least 2-3 nights a week. I served the steaks with plenty of fresh vegetables to keep it healthy.
• I found it really easy to prepare/cook.
• Fair value for money. Unfortunately lamb is more expensive than other meats, which really does effect how often we eat it. The added ingredients didn't add a lot of expense though which helped.
• I would buy lamb steaks again, but only occasionally as quite expensive.

Thanks for letting me take part :)

I made the quick lamb wraps. My husband and I enjoyed them, however, the kids were less keen (but they are particularly fussy eaters).
It was easy to cook but did take longer than it said. Partly because the lamb needed longer and also because my 5 & 2 year olds were helping out.
It was a healthy meal and filling.
I would say it was average value, in the main the ingredients are cheap to buy however, lamb is expensive therefore, making it more of a treat than an everyday meal.
I would buy lamb again, but as mentioned this wouldn't be that regularly as it is expensive to buy.

• Which lamb dish did you cook? I cooked the Lamb teriyaki.

Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste? My other half lived it. I expected to love it, but wasn't quite sure and unfortunately our toddler didn't like it at all.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook? This was a speedy meal. Prep done in less than 5 mins and straight to the pan.
• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal? Yes. The lean lamb meat, veggies and noodles created a well balanced meal.
• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value? Yes. Lamb is generally more expensive than other meats. However for under £5 worth of meat we created 3.5 meals. This seems pretty good value to me.
• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why? Yes. I will definately try lamb in a stir fry again, maybe tweaking the flavours of the sauce a little will convert me. It has opened my eyes to using lamb as a quick and easy mid-week tea. I'm going to look at the other recipes for inspiration.

We cooked the garlic and mustard lamb dish, and I must admit, my family and I aren't big lamb lovers. Not sure why so we thought this meal would be a challenge for us. We thoroughly enjoyed it! We found the recipe easy to follow and complete, I'm not a big cook so this was a good thing. We got our goods from Tesco and found the pricing relatively reasonable although I normally shop at Aldi where you do get more for your money. Overall, the experience has given us a different outlook on lamb and we will definitely try it out again very soon

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Teriyaki Lamb Stir fry Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste? I did but wish I had used other veggies (had to accommodate my non-spicy eating guests so opted for mushroom stirfry)

• How easy did you find the dish to cook? Very easy, I kept thinking "is this it?" and wondered why I don't cook this often.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal? Definitely, it was made from scratch and I knew the source of what I was putting in my meal.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value? Yes - most ingredients have remained so can use again and again. Think i'll opt for cheaper meat next time as the lamb was a bit pricey.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why? Yes - easy to cook - didn't take that long and would marinade in the sauce before cooking next time.

our voucher didn't work and were told another was on its way but never arrived.

I was over the moon to be picked for this as I adore lamb!

Which lamb dish did you cook?
Lamb cease salad
Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
Yes we are both big fans of lamb but I'd never considered having it with a salad so was grat to so this recipe. It's was scrumptious and it's now one of our staple lamb dishes, gorgeous with a glass of wine too 😜

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

It was super easy to cook and prep, great when you have 2 kids.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes I consider it very healthy bar the sauce but that's the treaty bit mmmmm 😛😛

• Did you consider the dish to be good value?

Yes What made it good value? We cut up the lamb into small pieces so it went a long way.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes for sure we already have they were so tasty and all the family enjoyed the dish.

Huge Lamb fans, much nicer than other meats! I'm getting hungry for Lamb just writing this.

Forgot to add a pic of this yummy dish. Lamb ceaser salad.

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
We had the garlic & mustard marinated streaks. DH really liked it; I personally wasn't sure about mustard on lamb. Glad I tried it though. I bet it would be lovely on beef (which is a suggested alternative on the recipe).

How easy did you find the dish to cook?
The prep was very quick, & cooking was pretty simple & easy, including the suggested side dish of rocket & potato salad.

Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
Yes, definitely. Good balance of nutrients, although we try not to eat red meat more than once or twice per week. Good portion size. The side dishes did feel like a bit of an afterthought, though - the lamb was cooked on its own & served hot, with a cold potato salad, & green beans. A proper hot accompaniment might have been nicer.

Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?
Tricky. Lamb isn't too expensive compared to beef. The suggested side dishes weren't too expensive & didn't require anything we didn't already have in / wouldn't usually buy anyway. In fact, we had all the condiments already, aside from fresh apple juice. But, even so, spending or using the greater part of £10 on ingredients for a meal for 2 seems rather frivolous.

Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?
Yes definitely. Very tasty, better value (cheaper) than the same weight of beef. However, lamb leg steak is usually a bit of a treat meal as it's not cheap. Mince goes quite a bit further...

I'm contemplating trying another of the recipes this week as we got a deal on the lamb, actually...

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
I cooked the Teriyaki Lamb Stir fry, I wasn't particularly keen on the taste as it had too much of a lime taste to the dish.
How easy did you find the dish to cook?
Yes very simple to make, although the sauce was far too watery and took a long time to simmer down to a reasonable consistency.
Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
Yes, plenty of vegetables, and all fat was cut off the meat leaving it lean, and we had some wholemeal noodles to go with it.
Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?
The meat was quite good value, buying some of the extras bumped the overall price up a bit (lime juice, Teriyaki sauce etc), but if they're things you are going to use again then it's not so bad.
Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?
Lamb is my favourite meat, and I regularly buy lamb steaks, so I absolutely will buy them again - it's very unlikely I shall make this recipe again though.

Couple of pictures taken while cooking, and the finished result.

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
We did the lamb steaks with herb and paprika rub. We both really enjoyed it although DH "wasn't sure" about the paprika (though that may have had something to do with questionable use by date of our spice rack!)

How easy did you find the dish to cook? Incredibly quick and easy.

Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
lean meat - which it was - served with salad or simple veg makes a very healthy meal, yes

Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?
I got 4 thin steaks (we had one each over two nights, bulked out with sides) for £5 so actually it wasn't bad value, no, at £1.25 per serving of meat. But we did stint ourselves on the size of the steaks to make it affordable.

Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?
Absolutely. It's so quick to prepare either with this recipe or just grill and serve, and I really enjoy lamb, but it wouldn't be a regular weeknight supper for us, more of a Friday/Saturday plus affair.

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
We had the Lamb Caesar Salad. DH loved it. I found the sauce a bit too strong/piquant.

How easy did you find the dish to cook?
I delegated the cooking to DH as he was really keen to have a go! He said it was very easy.

Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
Yes definitely.

Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?
Yes
I thought it was reasonable value, about the same as any other piece of meat. (We don't buy super cheap cuts like cheap chicken anyway for ethical reasons).

Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?
Oh yes, definitely. The smell coming out of the kitchen was amazing! I confess I'd probably cheat and get a Caesar salad packet next time to add it to! I prefer the taste.
DH did really enjoy the taste of the anchovy sauce though so I think it's down to personal preference.

I've attached a couple of photos of our attempt!

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

We had the paprika and herb steaks. Really enjoyed it - I wouldn't have thought of adding paprika to lamb. I did add some garlic into the mix though as I can't not have lamb without garlic.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Really easy to cook - on the bbq for minutes each side.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

I guess - I tend to think of lamb as being quite fatty but actually the lamb leg steaks were really juicy. We had potato salad rather than wedges as it was boiling hot on Bank Holiday Monday so wanted to have it with salads instead.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

Compared to decent beef steak it was definitely value for money. But too expensive for an every day meal.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes - I'd definitely think about buying them as an alternative to beef.

- Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
Cooked the lamb Caesar salad which DC and I enjoyed.

- How easy did you find the dish to cook?
Very easy.

- Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
Yes, overall pretty healthy.

- Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?
The lamb was quite expensive compared to other meat, although didn't need much if bulked out with salad so overall the meal was OK value.

- Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?
I might if it was on offer, it was tasty but expensive so not great for a regular mid week meal.

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

Quick Lamb Wraps - I really really enjoyed them, DS enjoyed the filling but got a bit exasperated that it kept falling out of the wrap while he was trying to eat it so ended up leaving the tortilla and just eating the lamb and rice!

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Very very easy - I boiled up the rice while I prepared the lamb and mushrooms and made up the yoghurt & mint sauce, and after that it was just a case of throwing it all into a frying pan!

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

A healthy meal to me would probably contain more veg, but for a quick midweek meal this would be a compromise. I might possibly add some green veg such as green beans next time.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

Actually no I don't, just because lamb is expensive. Otherwise, it was a very filling meal with few ingredients so I would say it was FAIRLY good value.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes but only occasionally as mentioned above, lamb is quite expensive. But I really did enjoy the lamb leg steaks as they were lean and had a lot of flavour.