The bistro dish that made shanks famous, back in your own kitchen

There was a time when butchers practically gave shanks away. Then some clever cook braised one in red wine until the meat slumped off the bone into a glossy, wine-dark sauce, put it on a bistro menu, and the secret was out for good. This is that dish — a proper sear, a soffritto, half a bottle of red and two and a half unhurried hours in a low oven. It asks for twenty minutes of real work and repays you with the kind of dinner people order at restaurants because they assume they can't make it at home. They can.

3 hrs 25 mins 2 servings Prep 20 minsCook 3 hrs 5 minsMain CourseFrench

Ingredients

  • 2 Your Farmer grass-fed lamb shanks
  • Salt and pepper to season
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 brown onion, finely diced
  • 1 carrot, finely diced
  • 1 stick celery, finely diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, sliced
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 375ml dry red wine
  • 500ml beef stock
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 sprigs fresh thyme
  • Mashed potato, to serve

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 160C. Season the shanks generously. Heat the oil in a heavy casserole over medium-high heat and brown the shanks well on all sides, 8 to 10 minutes total — this colour is the backbone of the sauce. Set aside.

2 lamb shanks2 tbsp olive oil

Lower the heat to medium and cook the onion, carrot and celery for 6 to 8 minutes until soft and starting to colour.

1 onion1 carrot1 stick celery

Add the garlic for 1 minute, then the tomato paste for 1 minute more, stirring it through the vegetables.

3 cloves garlic2 tbsp tomato paste

Pour in the wine, scrape the browned bits off the bottom, and let it bubble until reduced by about half, around 5 minutes.

375ml red wine

Add the stock, bay leaves and thyme, return the shanks and their juices, and bring to a simmer. Lid on, into the oven for 2 and a half hours, turning the shanks halfway, until the meat is falling from the bone.

500ml beef stock2 bay leaves3 sprigs thyme

Lift the shanks out and keep them warm under foil. Set the pot over medium heat and simmer the sauce for 10 to 15 minutes until glossy and thick enough to coat a spoon. Fish out the bay leaves and thyme stalks, and season to taste.

Serve the shanks on mashed potato with the sauce spooned generously over.

mashed potato

Appears in

Lamb Share B only — Shanks (2 pack)

Your Farmer CSA grass-fed lamb share — Pack B selection of pasture-raised lamb cuts, vacuum-sealed, NSW & ACT delivery
CSA Pastured Lamb Share
From $183.33

From Give-Away Cut to Bistro Royalty

The shank earned its place on menus the honest way. It's the lamb's working lower leg — dense with connective tissue, hopeless cooked fast, magnificent cooked slow. Braising is simply the technique that unlocks it: a hard sear for flavour, then hours barely submerged in wine and stock while the collagen melts into gelatine. That gelatine is what makes the finished sauce cling to the spoon without a gram of flour, and it's why the reduced braising liquid tastes so much bigger than its ingredients. Grass-fed shanks like the ones from Your Farmer® reward the method most — the meat has genuine lamb flavour to give the wine, not just texture. They come two to the pack in the Share B pack of our CSA pastured lamb share.

Swaps and Variations

Any dry red you'd happily drink works — shiraz braises darker and richer, pinot lighter and brighter. Half a cup of the stock swapped for port takes the sauce somewhere plush. Rosemary can stand in for thyme, and a strip of orange zest in the pot is a quiet, excellent addition. The same braise, times unchanged, is superb on grass-fed ox-tail if you're cooking from the beef side of the freezer. For the mash underneath, regenerative potatoes are the natural partner.

Storage and Leftovers

This dish was practically designed for making ahead — braise it a day early, refrigerate the shanks in their sauce, and reheat gently, covered, in a 160C oven. The flavour is genuinely better on day two, which makes it the least stressful dinner-party main going. It keeps 3 to 4 days in the fridge and freezes for 3 months. The leftover move: shred the meat into the sauce and serve it over pappardelle with gremolata — a second dinner that outranks most first attempts.

Frequently asked questions

What red wine should I use?

Anything dry that you'd drink from a glass — a mid-priced shiraz, cabernet or grenache blend all braise beautifully. Avoid anything labelled sweet, and don't spend big: the subtleties of an expensive bottle disappear in a 2.5-hour braise.

Can I make it without wine?

You can — use extra stock plus a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar stirred in at the end for acidity. It will be a very good braised shank, just not quite this dish; the wine's fruit and tannin are doing real work in the sauce.

I don't have a cast-iron casserole. What else works?

Any heavy oven-proof pot with a lid works, or do the stovetop steps in a frying pan and transfer everything to a deep baking dish covered tightly with a double layer of foil. Same oven temperature, same time.

Can I make it ahead for guests?

Absolutely — it's better for it. Braise up to two days ahead, store the shanks submerged in the sauce, and reheat covered at 160C for about 30 minutes. Do the final sauce reduction just before serving.

My sauce is still thin after reducing. What went wrong?

Nothing — it just needs longer. Keep it at a steady simmer and be patient; it can take 20 minutes to reduce properly. If dinner can't wait, whisk in a teaspoon of cornflour mixed with cold water and simmer for 2 minutes.

0 commentson Red Wine Braised Lamb Shanks

Three Simple Steps

A whole table of real food.

Your Farmers grow grass-fed beef and lamb, pastured eggs and the best eco-grown veggies and produce — every item grown to the same ecological standard, every farmer one you can know by name. One subscription, your whole real-food shop.

01

Reserve your share — or try a pack

Subscribe to a share of the harvest, or start with a one-off fixed pack.

02

Make it your own

Pick your delivery rhythm and what's in the box. Skip or cancel anytime — no lock-in.

03

Cook, savour, know your farmer

We deliver in a reusable esky we collect next time. No couriers, no waste.

5.0
Vendor:Your Farmer

CSA Grass Fed Beef Share

Price$176.67
Vendor:Your Farmer

CSA Pastured Lamb Share

Price$183.33
Vendor:Your Farmer

Grass-Fed Steak Box

Price$158.89
Vendor:Your Farmer

Grass-Fed Mince, Sausage and Diced Beef Pack

Price$264.44
Vendor:Your Farmer

Grass-Fed Beef and Lamb BBQ Box

Price$286.67
Vendor:Your Farmer

Pastured Lamb Roast and Slow-Cook Box

Price$155.56
Vendor:Your Farmer

Quarter, Half or Whole Cow: Grass-Fed Beef, Cut Your Way

Price$1,145.00
Vendor:Your Farmer

Whole Pastured Lamb, Cut Your Way

Price$525.00

More Recipes

View all

Osso buco-style braised grass-fed lamb chump chops in tomato sauce over soft polenta, topped with gremolata.

Osso Buco-Style Braised Chump Chops with Gremolata

The Milanese treatment — chops braised low in white wine and tomato, lifted at the end by lemony gremolata

Osso buco is Milan's great braise, and the finishing touch is what makes it: gremolata, a raw scatter of lemon zest, garlic and parsley chopped fine, stirred in right at the end. Against an hour and a half of slow, rich braising, that fresh, sharp hit is a revelation — it stops the whole thing feeling heavy and makes you reach for another spoonful. Lamb chump chops stand in beautifully for the traditional veal shin here, their fat and connective tissue melting into a glossy sauce over soft polenta. It takes time, but almost none of it is yours. This is a dish to be proud of.

Read moreabout Osso Buco-Style Braised Chump Chops with Gremolata

A thick bowl of split pea and lamb bone soup topped with shredded lamb and mint.

Split Pea and Lamb Bone Soup

Pea-and-ham thinking, straight from the lamb paddock

Every Australian family has a pea-and-ham soup story, and every one of those soups leans on the same trick: a bone in the pot doing the heavy lifting. This is that trick with lamb bones instead of a hock. The split peas collapse into a thick, velvety base, the bones give the broth real depth and body, and a pinch of smoked paprika stands in for the smokehouse if you want that familiar edge. It's the thriftiest pot in this whole collection — pantry peas, add-on bones, one lazy afternoon — and it eats like a hug.

Read moreabout Split Pea and Lamb Bone Soup

Grass-fed T-bone steak sliced and served with homemade tarragon bearnaise and chips, bistro style.

T-Bone with Bearnaise from Scratch

The sauce that turns a steak into an occasion

Béarnaise has a reputation as chef's territory — it isn't. It's three egg yolks, a sharp tarragon reduction and a stream of warm butter, whisked over gentle heat until it turns thick, glossy and faintly wobbly. Twenty minutes of honest attention, most of it while the steak rests. And there's no better steak to learn it on than a grass-fed T-bone: the fillet side was born for béarnaise, and the sirloin side isn't far behind. This is occasion cooking you can pull off on an ordinary Saturday.

Read moreabout T-Bone with Bearnaise from Scratch