A Favorite Recipe: Apple Butter Lamb Roast

My friend Tim originally shared this idea with me for an Apple Butter Lamb Roast. I tried my own adaption of it with a lamb shoulder roast and it was delicious!

 It’s a great way to cook a lamb roast in your slow cooker to serve at a holiday gathering! Get the meat going early in the day and then you don’t have to worry about it during last minute preparations for a dinner party or if you want to run holiday errands and come home to an easy to pull together, five-star meal!

 Ingredients:

1 thawed shoulder or leg roast

1 pint Apple Butter

Garlic powder to taste

Paprika (1 tsp)

Seasoning salt to taste

Rosemary (1 Tbsp)

1 red onion coarsely chopped

1 cup of water

 Directions:

Put Roast in crock pot with onion and water underneath. Mix Apple Butter with spices and pour over the top.

I cook a 5 lb shoulder roast for 2 hours on high and then about 4 hours on low (until “fall apart” stage). Adjust cooking time according to your roast size and how hot your slow cooker pot runs.  

Meal Idea: With this roast, we like to have jasmine rice with some of the juices poured over and finely cut or shredded roast meat on top.  Also, peas or steamed broccoli and a simple salad as additional sides. It is hard to beat this meal!  

 Notes: The apple butter cooks down and is not overly sweet on the roast and adds a touch of fruitiness to counterbalance the savory flavors of the other spices and salt. It doesn’t have the same “wow” factor as an oven roast, but it is definitely delicious and hard to mess up!

 My church (Pioneer Presbyterian, Belpre,OH) makes delicious Apple Butter every fall the old fashioned way with copper kettles over open fire as a fund raiser, and we usually have some left. Let me know if you want me to coordinate getting you a jar or two!

 We usually have leg roasts and a few shoulder roasts at our farm store!