Sheryl's Plum Lamb Shanks — The Easiest Winter Dinner You'll Make All Season
There are recipes that need skill. And then there are recipes that just need time, a slow cooker, and the right ingredients. This is the second kind — and it happens to be one of the best lamb dishes you'll cook this winter.
This recipe comes from Robin's customer Sheryl, who's been making it for years. Robin from Just Homegrown passed it along because, as she puts it, Sheryl swears by it. Once you've made it, you'll understand why.
Why Plum Sauce Works on Lamb
Lamb shanks need two things: long slow heat and something acidic or sweet to balance their natural richness. Plum sauce does both at once. The natural fruit sugars caramelise slowly around the meat, the acidity cuts through the fat, and what you end up with is a sauce that's thick, glossy, and deeply savoury — without having to do anything complicated to get there.
Robin's Plum Sauce is made from plums grown and harvested in Orange. The flavour is genuine — concentrated, fruity, and a long way from anything you'd find in a bottle on a supermarket shelf. That makes a real difference here, because the sauce is doing most of the heavy lifting in this dish.
The Recipe
Serves 4 | Prep: 5 minutes | Cook: 6–8 hours on LOW
You'll need: 4 lamb shanks, 1 bottle Robin's Just Homegrown Plum Sauce
Optional additions (Robin's tips): coarsely chopped onion and carrots tucked under the shanks; baby broccolini added on top in the last hour of cooking; a splash of white wine added when rinsing out the bottle.
Method: Place your lamb shanks in the slow cooker. Pour the plum sauce over them and make sure every shank is well coated. Rinse the bottle with a small splash of water or white wine and add that too.
Put the lid on and cook on LOW for 6–8 hours. Don't lift the lid, don't add extra liquid — the shanks release plenty of their own juices as they cook, and you want the sauce to stay rich and concentrated rather than watery.
After 6 hours, check. The meat should be falling away from the bone. If you added vegetables underneath, they'll have cooked down into the sauce. Turn the shanks over once or twice during cooking and tuck them under any vegetables if needed to keep them coated.
Your kitchen will smell extraordinary. That part isn't optional.
Serve over mashed potato with roasted carrots and steamed beans, or with steamed rice and Asian greens if you want something a little lighter. Either way, make sure you spoon plenty of that sauce over the top.
A Note on the Plum Sauce
Robin sources, picks, and makes this herself at Just Homegrown. The sauce is thick, deeply flavoured, and made without preservatives or additives. It's available through YourMarket — and once you've used it in this recipe, you'll want to keep a bottle on hand permanently.