Homemade Shepherd’s Pie is an affordable and nutritious meal that’s easy to make. Have a go at our recipe –
Technically our version should be called Cottage Pie as it’s made with beef. Of course traditional Shepherd’s Pie is made with lamb (because shepherd’s look after sheep…)
This, like most of the recipes we’ve shared, is one from our own cookbook. It’s a handed-along version, made by eye without precise proportions. You can adjust it to suit your own taste. Want to add peas? Go ahead!
Cost: I prefer to use the slightly more expensive, lower fat mince. It’s healthier and doesn’t have that strong meaty taste. Plus a couple or three carrots (40p), an onion (30p), old potatoes (40p) and gravy browning. So let’s say £5.00-ish to be generous and include some electricity. These ingredients will easily make 8 meals = around 60p per serving.
Money saving: Keep your eye out for mince when it’s on offer and pop it in the freezer. You could also use a vegetarian mince substitute too.
If you make it go for two days, serve it on the second day as super-gravy with Yorkshire Puddings, mashed potatoes and loads of vegetables!
Tip: Our recipe uses a pressure cooker. It’s a quick and easy way to make a filling, good value meal, with perfect results every time. Some of the new-fangled multi-cooker Ninja* things have a pressure cooker setting, or you can use an old fashioned one with the weight. If you haven’t got one you can do it the slow way, in the oven or a slow cooker. If you like stews, casseroles, soups and things in sauce I’d recommend a pressure cooker. They cut cooking time down (and cost) a lot.
*I’ve joined the bandwagon and invested in a Ninja Foodie. It takes a bit of getting used to but it cuts down cooking time dramatically and makes this kind of meal a doddle!
Recipe for Homemade Shepherd’s Pie
You could make this go to two days of meals quite easily.
Ingredients
Serves four.
- Couple of carrots
- One large onion
- 500g pack of minced beef – we use the 5% low fat version
- About 8 tablespoons of gravy granules
- Black pepper
- About 800g/third of a bag of old potatoes
- Milk and butter to make the mash
Speedy Stews in a Pressure Cooker
We’ve always used a traditional pressure cooker to make stews and meals like this. It gives the meaty bit a much nicer depth of flavour than you get by cooking it in a pan. If you were to ‘stew’ food in the oven you’d have it on for ages.
You can find the pressure cooker that we have on our Amazon Storefront here. It’s in the Home & Garden list. If you decide to invest in one we will earn an affiliate commission when you go through our link. It all helps us to keep producing the great content that you enjoy.
How to make Homemade Shepherd’s Pie
Peel the carrots and onions and slice them up, put them in the pressure cooker.
Add the mince – break it up so that it cooks evenly like mince and not a huge meatball!
Add about 8 tablespoons of Bisto gravy granules. The kind that you’d use to make instant gravy. You can always add a little more when it’s cooked if you need to. Season with some pepper.
It speeds the job up if you use boiling water from the kettle instead of cold water from the tap. Add enough water to come about 1/2″ short of the top of the ingredients. There’s a spot too much water in the photo below!
Put the lid on and cook on full steam for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, peel your potatoes and cut into small chunks, put in a pan of water to boil.
Timing:
If you do use a pressure cooker you’ll need to cook the meat slightly in advance of mealtime. You have to let a pressure cooker cool slightly and reduce pressure before taking the lid off.
About 3/4 of an hour before you want to eat, boil the potatoes until soft. Add butter and milk and make them into mash as you would do normally.
Having taken the lid off the pressure cooker, turn the ring back on to make sure the meat is hot enough. Then put the meat mixture into the bottom of a large baking dish or pyrex bowl – whatever you use. Then spoon the mash onto the top.
Put it under a hot grill to brown – it will take about 10-15 minutes. Then enjoy!
Cost and Nutrients
Back in the olden days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I did O level Home Economics. It was a really useful subject to take at school and I still refer to a lot of what I learned, even now.
One of the things we had to do was work out exactly how much a dish cost to make and exactly which nutrients it contained.
I’m not going to attempt to do this right now, although I’m sure I would have done it for Shepherd’s Pie at some point in the two year course!
You might also like:
- Meat and potato pie
- Corned beef hash
- Homemade soup
- Shepherd’s pie
- Soda bread
- Bacon sandwich
- Yorkshire fish cake
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