Marinated Lamb Kebabs

Servings: 8-10     |     Prep Time: 20 mins     |     Cook Time: 6-8 mins

How to make succulent marinated lamb kebabs, or kabobs, with spicy mint yogurt sauce. We love lamb. We love honest, unapologetic lamb. There is absolutely no fault in lamb tasting like lamb. We will not try to mask or hide any gaminess. What we like to do is enhance it with bright complementary flavors while still allowing the lamb to shine, like marinating and dipping it in our spicy mint yogurt sauce. We start with a leg of lamb, boneless or semi-boneless, that we cube. We're using a whole leg of lamb here, which is a good chunk of meat. This is great for larger group events. If you want to make it for just a few people, you can certainly halve this recipe.

We make the sauce with Greek yogurt, mint leaves, green Thai chili peppers, cilantro, garlic and lime juice. This flavor profile is Greek/Mediterranean meets Indian. These are summery flavors that work well all year round. Lamb and yogurt go hand in hand. We particularly love the richness of Greek yogurt. If you're unable to find it, regular plain yogurt will work as well, but eliminate water from the ingredients below if you do because it has a higher water content than Greek yogurt. If you can't find Thai peppers, serrano peppers can be used instead. We make enough sauce to serve as marinade and dipping sauce later. We'll smother the lamb cubes in this sauce and marinate it for 8 hours to overnight before grilling, making them tender, tangy, herbal, and just a tad spicy. Or if you have a vacuum sealing canister, like a FoodSaver, vacuum marinating gets fast results in only a few hours to get it just right.

Vegetables are perfect for the grill alongside lamb. With kebabs, you really can choose any number of vegetables that skewer well. Here, we're using red onion and green bell pepper for their flavors and complementary color combination. But other great vegetables to consider are sweet red and yellow bell peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, yellow onion, whole cherry tomatoes, and jalapeno or serrano peppers. Feel free to use whatever is in season.

Before grilling, soak your bamboo skewers in water for 20-30 minutes. The water content in the moist skewers will prevent them from burning when faced with hot flames. Get your grill hot and throw the lamb kebabs over the flames. These cook fast because we want them medium rare. When the lamb kebabs are all grilled up, they're tender, juicy, spicy cubes of delicious lamb. The trick is having a good flavorful marinade and giving the lamb cubes ample time to marinate. You won't believe how easy and tasty this recipe is.