Shepherd’s Pie
Shepherd’s pie (or cottage pie, which uses beef mince instead of lamb) is cheap, filling and tasty, so it’s no wonder we love it in this nation! We’ve got some expert tips and small steps you can take to move your shepherd’s pie from good to great, and increasing veg slowly over time.
Why is shepherd’s pie so great?
Shepherd’s pie is a classic for a reason – it is tasty, filling and affordable.
Mash is a great vehicle for some extra veg, and with a smaller portion of meat and some added veg, becomes a balanced meal that will fill you up, too. See some tips for which veg are great to add to mash, the sauce, or on the side of this supper, below!
Pies like these are also easy to batch cook – making a double batch and freezing one means you have a meal that only needs cooking through all ready and waiting!
If your family are big shepherd’s pie fans, a focus on smaller, better quality portions of meat where possible, while adding a little more veg in the mash or sauce, could actually make a marked improvement in the meal and take it to a new, healthier level.
Use the basic recipe, small tweaks and tips below to take your shepherd’s (or cottage) pie from good to better!
How are your shepherd’s pie skills?
Getting
started
I’m just starting out.
Next
Level
I’m ready to take it to the next level.
Engaging
Kids
How can I get my kids involved and interested?
Getting Started
Shepherd’s pie is a classic for a reason
It is tasty, filling and affordable.
Here is a simple recipe for Shepherd’s pie which you can use as a base and build on over time…
Shepherd’s pie
Claire Wright
Ingredients:
Minced meat or veggie alternative
A jar of tomato sauce
Mashed potatoes (fresh, frozen, pre-prepped – whatever works for you)
Optional frozen peas or carrots
Method:
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preheat your oven to 200C/gas 6.
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Cook the mince in a little oil in a frying pan until browned. Stir through the jar of sauce and let it simmer for a few mins to heat through. If using frozen peas or carrots, add them to the sauce and simmer until cooked (the packet will tell you how long this should take).
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If making mash, boil peeled and chopped potatoes until soft, then drain and mash with a little salt & pepper and oil, butter or milk if you feel it needs it.
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In a casserole dish, pour the meat sauce, then top with the mashed potatoes. Bake in the oven for 20-30 mins, until golden and bubbling
There is no need to go any further with this recipe until you are confident with it and feel up for the next step.
Feeling ready? Let’s see how you can get your next small victory without battles…
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
NEXT LEVEL
I Want To Improve My Shepherd’s Pie
If you are feeling confident with your favourite shepherd’s pie recipe, but you’re wondering if there are some small tweaks you could make for the better, this is for you.
We’ve outlined some simple stages for continually improving on a basic shepherd’s or cottage pie recipe to get you from good to great. Find where you feel your current recipe sits and see if the next step is something you could aim for. You don’t have to go any further, but if you choose to, make sure you are feeling confident with this new stage before you try the next one.
And remember, the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! These changes and swaps can take as long as is needed if your family isn’t ready for big changes all in one go. Small simple improvements over time may not even be noticed.
Better Sauce
Read the labels on jars of sauce and make changes as slowly as needed for your family, gently moving them towards lower sugar, salt and fat options and ingredients you recognise.
Swapping a ready-made tomato sauce for tinned chopped tomatoes can often help the budget as well as the salt and sugar content. Boost the flavour for shepherd’s pie with a little Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce, and a pinch of mixed herbs.
If you have a little time to make and store a big batch of homemade sauce for a few meals, why not try our rainbow veg sauce? Rainbow veg sauce is perfect for when you’re busy, as it’s a super quick way to get an excellent mix of veg into your kids and helps to produce tasty meals in a flash!
Making meals go further
With food budgets being stretched, meat can be expensive. Using veg and pulses can help a meal go further without noticeably altering the taste and texture. This not only saves you money, it also helps you get a little closer to 5-a-day! Go at your pace and work through the stages to build up to 50% meat and 50% pulses/veg over time if you can.
For shepherd’s pie, try a tin of lentils, drained, rinsed and added for the last couple of mins of cooking, or add a tin of cooked kidney or black beans if you prefer. If you think it will be turned down, try starting with just half a tin and perhaps even blending it into the sauce and just reduce the meat while adding more lentils and/or beans slowly each time you make the meal.
Add veg
Aim for 2 handfuls of veg per person in the long-run, but it’s better to go slowly and get there eventually than to rush to the finish line and find no one is ready to get there with you.
- Start with frozen veg – there is less waste, it’s cheaper and easier to add a little more each time. Try sliced carrots, peas, sweetcorn, mixed veg, chargrilled veg, peppers, mushrooms.
- If using fresh veg, make sure it is added at the start and allow time for it to soften in a little oil before adding the protein, and sauce. Try finely diced fresh carrots, onions and celery, sliced peppers, finely diced fennel or mushrooms. Or stir through some leafy green into the sauce before topping with the mash and baking.
- Mash is an easy place to add a little veg and increase over time – veg like cauliflower, celeriac or sweet potato (or other root veg) are cheap veggies that can be added to the potato while it cooks and mashed in, slowly adding more over time, or a tin of drained and mashed butter beans can be added to the mash.
- Most veg will work here, but root veg or broccoli/cauliflower, cabbage, etc work better in the mash, while others like peas, peppers, mushrooms, corn, etc work better in the sauce.
Don’t forget that the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! There’s no rush, and no pressure in not getting to 2 portions per serve.
Batch cooking
Once you are happy with your recipe, why not batch cook and freeze extra to save you future time, effort and money? Shepherd’s pie batches well, justmake double and freeze one ready assembled for up to 3 months, or keep in the fridge for a few days. Just heat to piping hot in the oven before serving.
Not sure if batch cooking is for you? People often think batch cooking means you have to have a big freezer and a slow cooker. But while those things can be helpful, they’re definitely not essential. Find out more about how to start small with batch cooking in our guide.
engaging kids
Play is essential!
Think of children helping in the kitchen as a role play game filled with fun for maximum effect. One of the best ways to develop a love of veg in kids is to get them involved in the prep of the veg. Not only is cooking an essential life skill for kids to learn, but it’s a great, fun way to get them engaging with healthy foods!
Cooking with kids
One of the best ways to develop a love of veg in kids is to get them involved in the prep of the veg. Not only is cooking an essential life skill for kids to learn, but it’s a great, fun way to get them engaging with healthy foods! They don’t have to be involved in the whole process especially when they are very young (let’s keep the mess to a minimum!), just give them 1-2 smaller jobs they can own with some supervision.
If you are making shepherd’s pie, why not get younger kids mashing up the potatoes (and any veg or beans added to it) and spooning it over the meat sauce in the dish.
Older kids might be ready to learn how to chop some fresh veg to add at the start of the meal, stir everything together in the pan, and layer it all in the dish!
See if they can tick off our Kitchen Ninja skills over time as you all get used to the recipe.
Arts & crafts
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging veg-based arts & crafts can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory.
Use these arts & crafts as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. While you make your shepherd’s pie, why not set them up with our chef crown?
Games & puzzles
Like arts & crafts, games & puzzles are a very safe way to get veggies to become more familiar and takes any pressure off eating or engaging their senses around veg for now.
A great place to start with shepherd’s pie might be our Get Over It carrots game!
Sensory
Sensory engagement with veg is possibly the best way to get children to slowly become more familiar with a veg. Take away the pressure to taste for now (and remember that ‘tasting’ could be expanded to include sniffing, licking and smelling) and instead encourage exploring a veg with a sense of smell, hearing, touch or sight.
Why not start with a carrot and/or a corn cob that you place in a clean sock or two and ask your child to see if they can describe the veg just through touch. Does it feel bumpy or smooth, pointy or round? What do they think it might be? Does it remind them of something? See if they want to chuck some into the shepherd’s pie after having engaged with them.
Serving
If your kids aren’t ready to be in the kitchen helping with part of the prep or cooking process, why not give them a job around the serving that could help them feel involved in the meal?
A crafty kid may like to design a beautiful menu, one who likes to help can lay the table. One may like to help you plate up the food, another may love to give the meal a theme! If you can (and we know it’s not always possible), try to eat with the kids, as they are much more likely to eat healthier food if they see it being eaten (and enjoyed!) by their families.
Why not let your child design a beautiful menu? Set them up with some paper and pens and see if they want to write and draw it out in layers like the pie, and perhaps even come up with a silly name for it? Make sure to praise them for their involvement as you serve it up and use the name they use on the menu, it may encourage them to try some!
DO you have a question you’d like one of our experts to help you with?
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