A Cottage Pie prepared with ground mince and baked in a casserole pan.
This recipe is the easiest from-scratch version you can make at home.
I called it originally a shepherd's pie with ground beef because that's what it is known as outside Ireland and Britain.
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📕 What is cottage pie and a shepherd's pie?
Shepherd's pie is a layered crustless pie, consisting of a gravy-like ground meat layer and a mashed potato layer.
A traditional British or Irish shepherd's pie is made with lamb meat and the one with beef is better known as a cottage pie.
The rest of the world just calls them all shepherd's pie, even the ones prepared with ground turkey or chicken meat.
I make mine with ground beef as you can see in the recipe. It just tastes better in my opinion!
🔪 How to make it?
Making a meat pie can be a bit tedious, I'm not going to lie. BUT the reward is just huge!
I make a cottage or shepherd's pie at least once a month for our family and we love it!
I break down the process in easy steps, the full recipe card with ingredients and detailed instructions is located at the bottom of this post.
The steps will help you to get a basic overview!
Step 1
Cook your potatoes through and prepare a mash.
Step 2
Prepare the ground meat gravy in a skillet.
Step 3
Assemble. Pour meat layer into your casserole pan and top with the mash potatoes.
Bake uncovered until the top layer turns golden brown.
📜 Flavor variations
My "shepherd's" pie is made with ground beef but you are free to use ground lamb, pork, turkey or even chicken meat.
Here are some more ingredients that you can add while you are cooking your beef gravy.
- green peas - Those are a standard in most cottage pies, I skip them because I like it better without peas but you are free to do what you like.
- corn
- beans - kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans,...
- lentils - brown lentils, green lentils, mung,...
- chili pepper or cayenne pepper powder - to make it spicy
- Herb de Provence seasoning - it will taste like a souther french themed Hachis Parmentier (French version of this dish)
🥣 Serving suggestions
We eat it for dinner with a simple green salad and a mustard vinaigrette.
The vinaigrette dressing is really amazing with a ground meat pie and the only way that you should have it for dinner.
That's the only serving suggestion you'll ever need!
💭 FAQs
Use a regular-sized 9 x 13-inch rectangular casserole pan for the best result.
The saucy meat filling is at the bottom of the pan. The mash potato tops the meat filling.
Keep in the fridge in the same oven friendly dish and covered. I just place an aluminum foil over the whole casserole dish. If there is only a little left, I transfer it to a smaller casserole dish into the fridge.
Yes, you can! Assemble the pie layers in your casserole dish and place it into your freezer to freeze hard. Take out whenever you need it and place it directly into the oven without preheating first. Add another 10-15 mins to the baking time to thaw and bake it through.
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Cottage pie with Ground Beef Recipe
Ingredients
For the mash potato layer
- 4-5 medium Potato uncooked peeled
- Salt to boil potato
- Water to boil potato
- 2 Tablespoon Butter
- 1½ cup Milk
- ¼ Teaspoon Nutmeg ground
For the ground meat gravy layer
- 1 Tablespoon Oil
- 2 Onion chop
- 2-3 cloves Garlic chop fine
- 1 Carrot medium or large cut small
- ½ cup Tomato Sauce
- 1 cup Broth
- 1 Teaspoon Rosemary
- 1 Teaspoon Thyme
- 1 Bay Leaf
- 2 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
- ½ Teaspoon Black Pepper
- Salt to taste
- ¾ pound Ground Beef
Instructions
For the mash potato layer
- Cook peeled potatoes in saltwater through.
- Strain potatoes when cooked, bring back to the pot and add butter, milk and nutmeg to the potatoes.
- Mash your potatoes over low heat until completely mashed. It will thicken over the heat.
- Keep mash potato layer aside.
For the ground meat gravy layer
- Heat up a skillet with the oil and sauté onion until soft.
- Add garlic and mix in, sauté for another minute.
- Add carrots and mix them in. Pour tomato sauce and broth over the mixture in the pan.
- Season with rosemary, thyme, ground black pepper, and a bay leaf.
- Combine everything and leave to cook for 5 minutes over a medium to slow heat. The sauce should thicken a bit and reduce in the pan.
- Pour Worcestershire sauce over the sauce and season with salt to taste. Combine sauce and take out the bay leaf and discard.
- Add ground beef to the skillet and mix into the sauce over medium heat. Cook it for about 2-3 minutes and take from heat.
To assemble Shepherd's Pie
- Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit/ 180° Celsius
- Pour all the ground meat sauce into a casserole dish and spread it out so that's even.
- Place the potato mash over the meat sauce and spread it out as well. Make sure the top is one level.
- Bake at 350° Fahrenheit/ 180° Celsius for about 20 minutes or broil for 5-10 minutes or until it looks golden done on top.
Notes
- Use ground lamb to make a classic British or Irish Shepherd's pie.
- Use a 13x9 inch Casserole pan
I would suggest making sure carrots are cooked completely before putting in oven. I cooked mine longer than instructions and they weren’t tender. Other than that, it was good.
That is why I recommend cutting the carrots smaller or into thinner halved slices as I did. You can see it in the video and in the process pictures. Thick sliced carrots will take longer to cook and they will turn out uncooked in your cottage pie. Thanks for pointing it out, that way others will be paying more attention to the carrots.
This was so much better than any type of meat pie I've had in the past. I used what I had on hand, and it was amazing. I used some leftover mashed potatoes for the topping, so I didn't have to make any for this dish.
I didn't have fresh carrots, so I used about 1/2 cup frozen peas & carrots mix. I had about 1/2 cup of leftover white beans, so I added those. Instead of canned tomato sauce, I had some leftover homemade spaghetti sauce, which I used. I also added a few shakes of cayenne pepper.. Both my husband and I LOVED it. I will definitely make this again, probably sooner rather than later. This recipe is a keeper.
Thanks so much for sharing Carol Ann! Love that you used up your fridge leftovers in this meat pie. That should give us all some ideas too. #zerowaste
Made this tonight because my husband loves shepherd's pie. I'm not as big a fan but this was really good! I had to make a few adjustments because I was missing things in my pantry: a mix of sage and terregon for rosemary, tomato paste and water for sauce. I added peas but otherwise cooked as directed and the flavor was great. Thanks for the recipe!
Erm? How many Shepherds do you know that look after cows? This is a cottage pie.
Yeah a shepherd's pie with ground beef is a cottage pie. I mentioned it at the beginning of the post. the ret of the world just calls it a shepherd's pie. The recipe mentions that you can use ground mutton or chicken or whatever you fancy. I focus on the taste in this recipe. I suppose you agree that taste matters right?
I have been making this for years, and I do half peas, half corn for the middle. For the hamburger I only use worscheier , onion., and garlic. Plus I layer cheese in each layer. Sounds fattening. but its delicious
Hi Jennifer,
Yours sounds delicious too! Yes my Shepherd's pie is on the skinnier side. Thanks for sharing the way you make your shepherd's pie. 🙂
Beautiful and tasting good!
thanks so much for your feedback Miriama 🙂