The Amell Family Blog

Typical Shepherd’s Pie is made using corn, ground beef, and mashed potatoes. We are not straying too far from the original recipes, but when you do not have creamed corn in the pie, I find it to be a very dry dinner. What do you do when you do not have creamed corn in the house?! You get creative! This is how I came up with the family’s favourite way to make Shepherd’s Pie! I have also included a tutorial of making the entire dish at the bottom of the blog post just in case you need help making the secret sauce from scratch.

Start with the potatoes

Since the potatoes tend to take the longest to cook through, I suggest starting with peeling the potatoes, cutting them into equal chunks for a quicker cooking time, and then filling the pot up with water and getting them on to boil. Be sure to lower the temperature to medium heat once they reach that boiling point or else it is one heck of a mess to clean! I have to clean up the starchy water mess way too often on my stove!
If you like my pasta pot, this one is similar to it. I love this pot! It is so convenient and it was an amazing gift! If I had to replace it, I would go with one like this!

next is the meat

I would move on to the meat next. We use 1 pound of ground beef in this recipe because we try to stretch our meat supply out. You can definitely use 2 pounds of ground beef though. Just lower the amount of vegetables you are putting in the dish. You want the meat to cook through and season it to your liking. We use Montreal Steak Spice for our seasoning. Sounds weird, but it is oh so delicious in this dish!

Now start the veggies

As the meat and potatoes are cooking away, we start the veggies! You can use any vegetables you would like really. We usually use the pea and carrot mixture, but you can throw corn in there, or use the broccoli and cauliflower mixture. Whatever works for you! You can use frozen or fresh vegetables as well, just be sure to cook them. We use about 4-5 cups of vegetables in this dish.

drain it!

Once the meat is thoroughly cooked through and is no longer pink and the vegetables are cooked, drain them both. Then you will want to put the meat and vegetables into a 9×13-inch Pyrex dish. Set the dish aside.

start the secret sauce

Now is the time to start the beautiful sauce of the dish……gravy! Yes, when we wanted Shepherd’s pie and we had no cream of corn, I decided to try making it with gravy and we have not looked back since! All of the kids devour this dish every time we have it for dinner. There are no left overs, ever. Check out the video at the bottom of the blog if you have never made gravy. I included a tutorial for making this entire dish for you and that includes gravy! You can use any type of broth for the gravy or if you have premade gravy, any kind will work. I tend to use chicken broth for mine since it is what I always keep on hand.

Mix it!

Once your gravy is made, start mixing it into your beef and vegetables that are in the Pyrex dish. Pour enough gravy that everything is nicely saturated, but you do not have a swimming pool. If you pour too much liquid in, you will have a hard time smoothing out the potato layer and will end up with a lot of potato chunks. I have definitely done this a few times and I either just own those potato chunks and keep throwing them in everywhere, or I mix the gravy into the potatoes a little bit and smooth it around as much as possible. Whatever floats your boat.

About 3 cups of gravy is perfect for the 9×13-inch dish. In the tutorial, I poured a little less than the 3 cups in and that was pretty much perfect. Pour until you are happy though, but we aware that some liquid will seep into the potato layer and escape the dish when you are broiling, so do not be too conservative with the gravy.
Speaking of broiling, now is a great time to turn your oven on to broil to get it heated up.

Check the potatoes

You will know your potatoes are finished cooking when you can stick a fork into them easily and they either break apart or your fork just slides in and out of them without resistance. When your potatoes are finished, drain them, add the butter and milk and get to mashing those suckers! If I have leftover gravy, I usually just throw that in there too. Make sure you add enough milk to keep the potatoes nice and moist. Then, using a fork, start slopping big old chunks of potatoes into your dish. I find it easier to add the potatoes in as chunks and then smooth it all out at the end, but whatever technique works for you is great! I also make little hills out of the potatoes as I am smoothing the layer out. The hills will brown up nicely as you will see in the pictures.

Broil until the hills brown

Now we are broiling that top layer of potatoes. Make sure you get a nice browning on the potatoes which is why I hill some of the potatoes. It makes it easier to see when they are turning brown.

Cheese please!

Cheese is a must for this dish!! I hardly had any shredded cheese left because we go through a lot of cheese and the other blocks were frozen, but normally we slather this dish in cheese and let it get nice and bubbly. It was also a nice treat to only have a little bit of cheese this time and let the flavours of the dish really come out. Add as much cheese as you want, and put the dish back into the oven to broil. Let it melt and get nice and bubbly.

Take it out and let it rest

Once your cheese is nice and bubbly, take it out of the oven and let it rest for 5 or 10 minutes to cool down a bit. Then serve it while it is warm and enjoy!

enjoy!

Let me know in the comments what you think of this dish. It is one of the family’s favourite dishes! We have also made many people eat vegetables they normally would not eat because of how yummy this dish is and like I said, every kid in the Amell household eats this dish and cleans their plate from it! Each kid normally eats 2 plates and tonight, Joseph even ate 3!

Substitutions

You could definitely substitute ground beef for any ground meat, beans, or meat substitutes, however I have not actually tried this so do this at your own discretion.
You can use any type of vegetables for this recipe I would think. Creamed corn was our favourite way to make this when we make it according to the traditional recipes. I think using a “California mix” vegetable mix could be delicious as well.
You can use any type of potato for this recipe and I would think you could use any type of mashed squash or turnip or even cauliflower, but I have only used mashed potatoes for this.

Kid-Approved Shepherd’s Pie

Feeds 6-8 people

Ingredients

Potato Layer

• 12 medium+ sized potatoes
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1-2 cups milk

Beef Layer

• 1lb ground beef
• Montreal Steak Spice seasoning

Vegetable Layer

• 4 cups of mixed vegetables (see notes)

Gravy

• 1/4 cup butter
• 6 tablespoons flour
• 3 cups of broth (see notes)

Toppings *optional*

• 1-2 cups shredded cheese
• bacon bits

instructions

1. Peel potatoes. Cut potatoes into equal sized cubes. Place potatoes in a pot and fill with water. Place on stove and turn to high heat to boil; reduce to medium heat once boiling.
2. In a pan over medium heat, cook ground beef until no longer pink. Break the ground beef into smaller chunks while cooking. Season with Montreal Steak Spice seasoning or seasoning of your choice. Drain grease and set aside.
3. Boil or steam vegetables until cooked. Drain and set aside.
4. Preheat oven to broil.
5. In a 9×13-inch glass dish, mix the drained ground beef and vegetables together. Set aside.
6. For gravy:
   In a small or medium sauce pan, melt butter.
   Once melted, add the flour 1 tablespoon at a time and using a whisk to mix into the melted butter.
   Once the 6 tablespoons of flour are added, the mixture should be thick and smooth.
   Stir the mixture and continue to cook for another 2 minutes to cook the flour taste out.
   Add the broth in small increments and mix with whisk ensuring the mixture stays smooth and the liquid is incorporated completely before adding more liquid.
   Add 3 cups of broth, stopping once you hit the consistency you desire.
7. Add the gravy to the ground beef and mixed vegetables that are in your 9×13-inch cooking dish. Mix together
8. Stick a fork in the potatoes to make sure they are cooked thoroughly.
   Once thoroughly cooked, drain the potatoes.
   Add the butter and milk and mash the potatoes.
9. Add the potatoes to the mixture in the glass cooking dish. Using a fork, smooth out the potatoes into an even layer to cover the gravy, meat, and vegetable mixture.
10. Before adding the cheese, put the dish in the oven to lightly brown the potato layer. Once some areas are golden brown, remove the dish and add a layer of cheese on top of the potatoes. Return to the oven and allow the cheese to melt. Remove once the cheese is bubbling. Let sit for 5-10 minutes to cool. Serve warm and enjoy!

Notes

• You can use any type of frozen vegetable mixture. We usually use the carrot and pea frozen mixture, but have used canned corn, the vegetable mixture that has corn, peas, and carrots, and I honestly think the mixture that has carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower would taste great as well.
  You could also use fresh vegetables, but just make sure they are cooked.
• You can use premade broth for this, but I tend to make broth using broth powder. I always have chicken bouillon on hand and it tastes great in this recipe. To make 3 cups of broth, I add 3 heaping teaspoons of powder to 3 cups of boiling water. You can use vegetable broth or beef broth for this recipe. When I say teaspoons though, I am talking about the small spoons in my kitchen I use to take a tea spoon out.
• You can season the beef however you like but we enjoy the Montreal Steak Spice seasoning for this. It sounds odd but tastes delicious. I only add about 1/2 tablespoon to 1 tablespoon of it, so it is lightly seasoned.
• You can definitely freeze this recipe. Just let the dish cool and do not add the cheese. To reheat, take it out of the freezer and place into the oven while the oven is heating up. Heat at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30-45 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Then add the cheese, let it melt in the oven, and enjoy!

video tutorial