Grill50 — Practical Grilling & BBQ Guides

Lamb on the Grill: Chops, Leg, and Safe Temperatures

This guide covers the USDA minimum for lamb steaks, chops, and roasts, which is 145 °F with a 3-minute rest. It also covers ground lamb, which the USDA chart lists at 160 °F. Doneness labels are kept separate because they are preferences, not safety rules.

The USDA figures for lamb

The USDA chart lists 145 °F for lamb steaks, roasts, and chops, with a rest time of 3 minutes. The chart lists 160 °F for ground meat and sausage in the beef, bison, veal, goat, and lamb group. The ground meat and sausage row has no rest time. The chart puts the rest time on the steaks, roasts, and chops row. That row, for beef, bison, veal, goat, and lamb, carries the 145 °F figure and the 3-minute rest.

Doneness labels are preferences

Clemson Extension’s lamb guide labels 145 °F as medium-rare, 160 °F as medium, and 170 °F as well-done. Treat these labels as preferences; they do not replace the USDA minimum. Practical advice: pick the doneness you like, but first confirm the reading has reached the USDA minimum. The Clemson sheet shows a revision date of Jan 8, 2007. Practical advice: look for a newer version of the sheet before relying on its labels. Clemson Extension’s lamb guide says recent research has shown that color and texture indicators are not reliable.

Grilling lamb chops and steaks

  • Practical advice: pat chops dry before they go on the grate so they brown rather than steam.
  • Practical advice: keep a hot side for browning and a cooler side for finishing thick chops.
  • Practical advice: give thick chops time on the cooler side so the center comes up before the outside darkens too far.
  • Practical advice: put the probe into the thickest part of each chop, clear of bone and fat.

Clemson Extension’s lamb guide says to use a meat thermometer to check for safe cooking and doneness of lamb. For zone setup, see how to set up direct and indirect heat zones.

Leg of lamb as a roast

Practical advice: treat a leg roast as a roast, whether it is bone-in or boneless.

The chart’s row for lamb steaks, roasts, and chops is 145 °F with a rest time of 3 minutes.

Practical advice: probe the thickest part of the roast, and check more than one spot on a large cut.

Practical advice: a rolled leg can be uneven in thickness, so probe the thickest section rather than the ends.

Common mistakes

  • Practical advice: judging doneness by pink color alone.
  • Practical advice: using a recipe’s lower medium-rare number as a safety target.
  • Practical advice: skipping the rest and cutting straight away.

Limits

This guide gives no cook times for lamb. Practical advice: judge doneness by the thermometer reading rather than the clock. Practical advice: take a second reading for thick roasts, since one spot can read cooler than the rest. For the rest period in more detail, see how to rest meat after grilling. For probe technique, see grilling with a meat thermometer.

Sources

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