Slow Cooker Guinness Lamb Shanks
Eight hour slow cooked lamb shanks braised in rich, velvety Guinness. Lamb shank is one of the most flavourful cuts of lamb and benefits enourmously from a low and slow cook. By the end, the meat will fall off the bone and melt in your mouth.

The star of the show in this dish the lamb shanks, which will be available at all good butchers and most large supermarkets. Remember that lamb shanks are large – we use a 3.5L slow cooker and can only fit 2 lamb shanks in it. So don’t overbuy and be disappointed that they won’t all fit!
The rest of the ingredients are very straight forward. You can use lamb or beef stock for this dish, with beef stock being slightly richer. We also place whole baby carrots in the slow cooker. However, you could use any type of carrots, chopped how you like.
If you have any spare rosemary or thyme sprigs lying about, you could add either to the slow cooker too for some extra flavour and aromatics. Just remember to remove them before serving.
The Guiness adds a velvety texture and rich flavour to this dish, but it’s absorbed among the other flavours. So it won’t come out tasting of Guinness in the same way as when you drink it. If you want to add an extra dark, slightly bitter taste back into this dish you could add in 1 tbps of Marmite.
There’s only one way to serve this in our opinion and that’s on a bed of buttery, creamy mashed potatoes. Spoon over the sauce from the slow cooker onto the dish and top with freshly chopped parsley.

Slow Cooker Guinness Lamb Shanks
Equipment
- Slow Cooker
- Frying Pan
Ingredients
- 2 Lamb shanks
- 1-2 tbsp Olive oil for frying
- 1.5 tbsp Tomato puree
- 250 ml Lamb or beef stock
- 250 ml Guinness
- 1 pinch Salt & pepper
- 100 g Carrot Chopped, or kept whole if baby or chantenay carrots
- 1 Leek Chopped
- 2 cloves Garlic Minced
- Freshly chopped parsely to serve
Instructions
- In hot pan with a 1-2 tbsp of olive oil, brown the lamb shanks on all sides. This will probably take around 5-10 minutes. Add a little salt and pepper to the lamb shanks at this stage.
- Turn the temperature down and add the carrots, leeks and garlic. Cook for a further 1-2 minutes.
- Add the tomato puree, stir and cook for a further 1-2 minutes.
- Add in 250ml of lamb or beef stock and 250ml of Guinness. Gently bubble for a further 3-4 minutes.
- Carefully transfer the contents of the pan to the slow cooker.
- Cook for 7-8 hours on low. Carefully remove the lamb shanks and serve on a bed of creamy mashed potato. Top with freshly chopped parsley.
Notes
Nutrition
Why not try?
Want a slow cooked lamb recipe, but don’t fancy this one? Then take a look at all of our lamb recipes here. Or for all our recipes, use our recipe finder to narrow down a recipe choice!