Lamb shoulder substitutes

The closest match by a wide margin, because neck and shank do the same job in the animal and carry the same ratio of collagen to fat. They break down over two to three hours into exactly the sticky, gelatinous, spoonable meat that shoulder gives, and the flavour is the same or slightly deeper. The only real difference is shape: you get chunks around a bone rather than a single roastable joint, so this works well in a curry, tagine or stew and less well when you wanted to carve something at the table.

Best for

lamb curry, tagine, Irish stew, ragu, braises

Shanks are usually cheaper than shoulder and often easier to find in US supermarkets.

The practical answer in an American supermarket that stocks only leg and chops. Same flavour, but leg is much leaner, so a leg cooked for three hours the way shoulder is cooked will be dry and fibrous rather than unctuous. Two fixes: either cook it to 130-135F and slice it pink instead of shredding it, or if the recipe genuinely needs long cooking, cube it, brown it, and braise it fully submerged in stock with a couple of tablespoons of oil or butter added to compensate for the missing fat.

Best for

roasts, curries where the meat is cubed and submerged, kebabs, lower-fat cooking

The sauce will taste thinner and less silky, because you lose the fat and collagen shoulder contributes.

Very close in structure and the standard cut in a great many Caribbean, South Asian and West African recipes that Western books translate as lamb. It is leaner and a touch sweeter and more mineral than lamb, with less of lamb's fatty aroma, so a rich curry made with it tastes cleaner and slightly less heavy. Add a tablespoon of ghee or oil per pound and give it an extra 30 to 45 minutes, since goat needs longer to become tender.

Best for

curry, birria, goat stews, biryani, halal and Caribbean cooking

Widely stocked at halal, Latin and Caribbean butchers, and usually cheaper than lamb.

Structurally almost the same cut on a different animal, which means it behaves identically in the oven or the pot: slow-roast at 300-325F until it shreds, and the fat and collagen do the same work. The flavour is the real change. Pork is sweet, mild and rounder, with none of lamb's grassy, slightly gamy edge, so a Middle Eastern or Indian dish built around lamb will taste noticeably flatter and less distinctive. Push back with more cumin, coriander and black pepper, and a squeeze of lemon at the end.

Best for

slow roasts, shredded meat for flatbreads, stews, tight budgets

Not suitable if the recipe needs to stay halal or kosher, in which case use goat or beef chuck.

The best non-lamb, non-pork option and the easiest to buy anywhere. Chuck has the same generous collagen, so it braises to the same soft, shreddable texture over three hours, and short ribs give an even richer sauce. Flavour is deeply beefy rather than lamby: a lamb tagine made with chuck tastes robust and satisfying but loses the sweet, slightly wild note that makes it a tagine. Beef also takes 30 to 60 minutes longer than lamb shoulder to give in.

Best for

braises, stews, curries, halal and kosher cooking, wide availability

A teaspoon of ground cumin plus a small piece of cinnamon helps beef sit convincingly in a lamb recipe.

Meat from a mature sheep, so you get more of everything lamb offers: deeper, sweeter, unmistakably gamier flavour, firmer muscle and yellower fat. It is the intended cut in many Indian, Pakistani and Caribbean recipes. Excellent in strongly spiced dishes, overpowering in delicate ones, and it genuinely needs the extra hour to soften.

Best for

mutton curry, biryani, rogan josh, long braises

Skim more fat off the finished sauce than you would with lamb.