Easy Shepherds Pie Or Cottage Pie

An Irish Speciality

Before I met my husband I’d never even heard of shepherd’s pie and now it’s one of our family’s favorite recipes thanks to my part Irish husband! I mean theres a reason I have so many St. Patricks Day games on my site! I mean what’s not to love? Meat, good. Potatoes, good. Veggies, good. Yep – shepherd’s pie is all of the best things all in one delicious dish. And this recipe in particular has the most amazing flavor in the filling. Combine that with creamy mashed potatoes and hello, dinner is served. The one thing you need to know is that this is made with beef, not lamb. I know traditional shepherd’s pie is made with lamb, but we were going for easy shepherd’s pie so beef it is. If you were (are??) English, you might actually call this cottage pie instead. But we’ve always called it shepherd’s pie so that’s what we’re going with for this post.

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes

Okay so first off, that might look like a lot of ingredients but that includes both the pie and homemade mashed potatoes. This recipe is actually perfect for using up leftover mashed potatoes. So you may not actually need all those ingredients, just the ones for the actual filling.

Ghee – we always use ghee after doing this Whole 30 meal plan but you can totally substitute butter instead if you don’t have ghee on hand. Chicken broth – you can use either chicken or beef broth or bone broth.Ground beef – like I mentioned above, we used ground beef in the photos for this post but you can also use ground beef if you want a more traditional shepherd’s pie compared to cottage pieTomato paste – if you don’t have tomato paste on hand, ketchup works too since I’m guessing most people have that on hand

Instructions

Okay so the first step is going to be making your mashed potatoes. Make these mashed potatoes without milk with that recipe. While your mashed potatoes are cooking, preheat your oven to 400 degrees and prep the meat filling. Heat a large saute pan over medium high heat. When it’s hot, melt the ghee in the pan and coat the pan with it. Add the carrots and salt and cook for 3 minutes. Then make a well in the middle of the pan, kind of like you would for this ham friend rice, and push the carrots to the sides. Salt both sides of the meat, breaking it into two halves and salting both halves if it’s a large block of meat. Add the meat in the well in the pan and brown for three minutes on each side. Break up the meat into small pieces and cook for another 2 minutes, mixing in the carrots as you cook. Add the spices and stir for two minutes, making sure not to burn the garlic (so keep stirring!). Once the spices are combined into the meat and cooked, sprinkle the flour over the meat mixture and stir to combine. Add the liquids to the pan, stir to combine, and scrape any browned bits from the bottom of the pan into the mixture. Increase the heat and bring it to a boil. Then cover the pan, reduce to low, and let the mixture simmer for about 10 minutes or until the sauce has thickened. Add the peas and corn to the meat mixture – these will just warm up in the oven and don’t need to be pre-cooked with the other ingredients. Pour the meat filling into the bottom of an 8×8 glass baking dish, spreading it around to cover the bottom of the dish. Add the mashed potatoes on top of the shepherd’s pie filling and smooth it out with a spatula. Use a fork and lightly rake the entire surface of the mashed potatoes one way and then the other direction. This helps the top brown evenly. Place the dish on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake on the middle rack of the oven for about 25 minutes or until the potatoes begin to brown. Let it cool for a few minutes then serve warm, making sure to get plenty of the mashed potatoes and filling in each serving!

Expert Tips

Pay attention to corners when you’re covering the filling with the mashed potatoes. You want to create a seal to keep any juices from bubbling up and making the mashed potatoes on top soggy (rather than that nice crisp layer). Cut large blocks of meat in half (hamburger bun wise) so you have two thinner pieces for meat for even browning. Salt both sides of each half before browning for the best flavor.
Keep watch on the garlic while it’s cooking, making sure to stir it constantly so you don’t end up with burnt garlic. It burns quick if you aren’t paying attention. Cut the meat into small bite size pieces, like you would with this homemade taco meat, so that it’s about the same size as the veggies. You want to go more with ground beef than beef stew chunks. Store any leftover shepherd’s pie in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days. Reheat in the oven until warm.