Dressed with a simple balsamic and olive oil glaze and scattered with basil, this delicious Italian Style Lamb Traybake is very easy to make and ready in just 45 minutes – perfect for a midweek treat or as a summery alternative to roast lamb.
This year I’ve teamed up with the ‘LAMB. Tasty Easy Fun’ campaign to share my love of lamb and to bring you lots of delicious and easy lamb recipes.
Back at Easter I invited you to request lamb recipes you would like to see on Easy Peasy Foodie. So far I have made several of your requests, including my Easy Lamb Moussaka, Leftover Lamb Korma and Greek Style Lamb Kebabs.
One of the things you asked me to share was a simple lamb chops recipe – I’ve already shared my Moroccan Lamb Chops, but I thought you might an Italian Lamb Chops recipe this time…
This Italian Style Lamb Traybake is incredibly simple to make and totally delicious – it makes a wonderful midweek treat, or alternatively this would be a brilliant summery alternative to your usual Sunday roast lamb, served simply with salad leaves (I used baby spinach leaves) and some crusty bread.
Although the Italian flavours, make this feel really summery, this would be just as wonderful served in the winter with a big pile of mashed potatoes!
One of the things I love about lamb is how versatile it is – it lends itself to so many different flavour combinations – it’s especially brilliant with Mexican, Middle Eastern, Greek and Indian Flavours – and you can find plenty of examples of those among my many lamb recipes, but lamb actually goes surprisingly well with Italian flavours too, such as balsamic vinegar, olive oil and basil. I was really impressed with just how well this flavour combination worked. The lamb juices also mix deliciously with the balsamic vinegar and olive oil to make a wonderful sauce to drizzle over the chops and of course mop up with some lovely Italian bread!
When cooking chops, it is really worthwhile resting them for a short time afterwards – no need to rest them as long as a joint, 5-10 minutes will do. This works out perfectly in this recipe as the veggies need a little more time to cook than the lamb. So I get the lamb chops out when they are ready, but give the veggies another 10 minutes in the oven, while the lamb is resting, to go lovely and brown on top.
If you are serving the lamb chops straight from the tray at the table, simply pop the rested lamb chops back on top when the veggies are ready and then scatter with basil and serve with the bread and a side salad.
Alternatively, if you prefer to plate up in the kitchen, scatter the salad leaves on the plate (baby spinach works particularly well here), top with the beans, peppers and tomatoes and then pop the lamb chops on top, drizzle with the pan juices and scatter the basil on top.
I feel a lovely Italian dish deserves a lovely Italian wine – I would suggest either a Chianti Classico or a Barbera d’Asti would be great matches for this dish. Alternatively try a Sangiovese (the main grape variety in Chianti) from somewhere like Australia or the USA.
Italian Style Lamb Traybake
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 8 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- Salt and pepper
- 8 lamb chops
- 2 yellow bell peppers chopped into large chunks
- 400 g tin cannellini beans drained
- 250 g cherry tomatoes ideally on the vine
- Handful of basil leaves
- Baby spinach/salad leaves and/or bread to serve
Method
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Preheat your oven to 220C / 200C / gas mark 7 / 425F.
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Mix together 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and 4 tablespoons of the balsamic vinegar in a large bowl, together with a little salt and pepper. Add in the lamb chops and turn to coat. Set aside until needed.
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Place the chunks of pepper into a large roasting tray and drizzle with the remaining oil. Put in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.
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Remove the peppers and add the cannellini beans, cherry tomatoes and then the lamb chops on top. Drizzle over all the juices from the bowl.
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Cook for 10 minutes then turn the lamb chops over and cook for a further 10 minutes.
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Remove the lamb chops from the oven and put on a plate, return the roasting tray to the oven for a final 10 minutes to get some colour on the veggies.
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Allow the lamb chops to rest on the plate (cover with foil if the room is cold).
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Return the lamb chops to the tray and scatter with basil leaves if you are serving this at the table. Alternatively serve on a bed of spinach, with the beans and veggies and the lamb chops on top, scatter with basil. Drizzle with the remaining balsamic vinegar and serve.
Notes
Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.
This is a collaborative post with the ‘LAMB. Tasty Easy Fun’ campaign. ‘LAMB. Tasty Easy Fun’ is an EU funded campaign which aims to increase the use of lamb in everyday cooking. Lamb is often considered difficult to cook, expensive, or something to be saved for Sunday roasts. The aim of the campaign is to demonstrate just how tasty, easy and fun lamb is to cook with every day of the week! They also have a wonderful website, full of tasty and easy lamb recipes that go way beyond the traditional roast lamb we all know and love.
Want more delicious lamb recipes? Find more here…
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Linkies
I am linking this up to Brilliant Blog Posts, Cook Blog Share, Cook Once Eat Twice, Free From Fridays and Recipe of the Week.
This looks amazing and as I love lamb I will definitely give it a try #brilliantblogs@_karendennis
Thanks Karen – it’s super yummy and so easy peasy to make. Hope you enjoy it if you make it!! Eb x
Eb this looks delicious and I love how you have served it on a bed of spinach. Delicious and healthy = perfect! Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x
Thanks Kirsty. The spinach really works so well and makes this a fab low carb recipe (unless you are like me and feel the need to mop up all those lovely juices with a bit of bread!) Eb x
This looks super tasty and really delicious! I love how the beans make it a bit more filling too so you could miss out the bread on a low carb diet, although I have to say I’d love some Italian bread alongside to mop up all those juices! Thanks for sharing with #CookOnceEatTwice x
Haha – yes, you absolutely could miss out on the bread and this would still be yummy and filling…though if you don’t need to be on a low carb diet, then bread for mopping up the juices is pretty awesome! Eb x
This is a lovely recipe, so simple and full of flavour, with all the vegetables and the meat there is no need for too many spices. Btw just saw your ‘excited face’ on Instagram about the cruise blogging event – I am going too:)
Thanks Monika! It’s a lovely simple but tasty recipe…as you know, I am a huge fan of spices, but sometimes I like to let the flavours of the other ingredients really have a chance to shine…this recipe really does show off the delicious flavour of the lamb chops. And yes, I am super excited to be going on the Foodies 100 blogging event – and even more so, now I know you are going too. Will be so lovely to meet up after all this time!! Eb x
This looks so delicious, love a traybake, so quick and easy. I had lamb tonight and made a coriander and caper salsa with it. Love a bit of lamb x
Aw, thanks Vicki! Quick and easy is what I do best 😀 Ooh yum – love the idea of lamb with capers and coriander…sounds so delicious! Lamb is so wonderfully versatile, isn’t it? Eb x