The Spiced Lamb Salad That I Keep Getting Asked For

I first posted this one months ago. Since then: 12K saves, endless DMs, and plenty of people still looking for the recipe. Here it is — properly at home.

I’m so happy to be sharing this recipe with you, because this exact lamb salad is one of the main dishes I had in mind when I started this Substack.

I posted a reel for this lovely meal on IG back in January. It performed well, a few new subscribers came in, I sent out the recipe via my old newsletter platform a week or so later and that was that.

Only it wasn’t.

Over the weeks and months that followed, the reel kept gaining traction on Instagram. The algorithm has taste! More than 12K saves later, the DMs just keep coming — plenty of requests for the recipe, but, alas, nowhere easy for me to send hungry salad lovers who just want to know how to make a delicious sticky lamb and spicy carrot dish. (My kind of people.)

This has been frustrating for all.

So, I am so pleased to share this crazy delicious salad recipe here on Substack — not just so you have it in your email, but also to finally give it a proper home, with a link that you and I can copy, paste, and share with others with ease.

(And also because it’s genuinely great, and fully deserving of the attention it’s had, if I do say so myself.)

I sometimes wonder if I should even be calling this a salad. The word suggests something light and fresh — and while I LOVE salads (and while, yes, it is fresh), the word salad doesn’t quite capture the abundance of this dish.

In truth, this spiced lamb ‘salad’ is anything but light. It’s full of substance — packed with heat, meat, richness, and flavour.

It’s giving main dish energy, and I often find myself hoping for leftovers at the end of my in person cooking classes but sadly there usually isn’t any, as it’s one of the most popular dishes on the menu.

This recipe leans on just a handful of ingredients that do the heavy lifting for you: baharat and rose harissa bring deep, layered flavour to the lamb; toasted pine nuts add crunch and richness; sticky-sweet currants offer little bursts of sweetness.

The spiced mince gets tossed with plenty of fresh herbs (which act as the leaves) and green chilli, along with sticky honey and cumin-roasted carrots (which could easily stand alone as a sensational side dish themselves).

The whole thing is finished with a generous drizzle of creamy, lemony tahini.

Each bite lands somewhere between sweet, spicy, sticky, sharp and fresh.

This dish will work very well for a midweek meal, for batch cooking, or made en masse for a larger gathering — you could serve it as a fresh and fun main dish, with pita and dips, or as a very hearty side salad to go along with other plates on the table.

However it’s served, I absolutely love this dish and think you will too. Recipe below!

The recipe

INGREDIENTS (makes for 4 large salad portions)

• 500g lamb mince

• 6 medium carrots sliced on an angle in thin oval shapes rounds

• Half a cup or so pine nuts

• 1 to 2 tbsp baharat

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1 heaped dessert spoon rose harissa maybe more

• A big handful dried currants

• 1 tbsp ground cumin

• A generous drizzle honey

• 1 bunch mint, leaves removed from stalks and roughly chopped

• 1 bunch flat parsley, roughly chopped, stems included

• 1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped, stems included

• 1 to 2 spicy green chillies, sliced lengthwise and then thinly sliced into fine crescents. Keep the seeds for heat!

• Extra virgin olive oil

• 1 to 2 lemons

• Sea salt flakes to taste

  For the creamy tahini:

• Half to a whole cup runny tahini

• Splashes of water as needed

• Juice of 1 to 2 lemons

• Salt to taste

METHOD

THE CARROTS
Preheat the oven to 190c fan. On a lined baking tray, spread the carrots out and coat well with olive oil, salt, honey and cumin
Roast for around 45 mins to an hour or until dark, sticky, golden and caramelised.

THE MINCE
Remove mince from fridge at least 30 mins before you want to cook it.
Start by toasting your pine nuts in a frying pan on medium heat and when golden (after about 5 mins or so) add the mince to the pan and break it up really well with a wooden spoon. Fear not, the pine nuts will not burn since they'll now be protected by the moisture of the meat.

Once the lamb has been broken up, spread it across the frying pan and let it sit and brown and get some nice caramelised bits before moving it around.
When the lamb is cooked through and you see some crispy bits forming, go ahead and season with the baharat, harissa, cinnamon and generously with salt.

Taste to make any adjustments then add the currants, stir and let cool. Flavourwise, it should be warm, spicy and well spiced! I often end up adding more baharat and harissa.

THE TAHINI
Meanwhile, make the tahini by mixing the tahini with the lemon juice, salt and water. Start with about 2 parts tahini to 1 part water. Whisk or stir really well. The mixture will split and then emulsify again as you continue to stir but you might need to keep adding more splashes of water if its too thick.

You want this to be of a drizzly consistency and should be really lemony and salty too so taste to make any adjustments.

THE HERBS
Just before serving, throw all the herbs and green chilli into a big mixing bowl and season well with salt, lemon juice and olive oil.

ASSEMBLE
When the carrots and lamb have cooled a little, throw both into the bowl along with the herbs and chilli and toss well to combine.

Give it a taste and make any adjustments on heat, lemon, oil or salt.
Heap it up onto a big platter with lashings of tahini and enjoy!