Veggie shepherd's pie with sweet potato mash
By Sara Buenfeld
Cooking time
Prep: 25 mins Ready in 45 minsSkill level
EasyServings
Serves 4The secret to this shepherd's pie’s filling is to choose big carrots so they don’t lose their texture when cooked
Nutrition and extra info
Additional info
- Freezable
- Easily halved
- Vegetarian
Nutrition per serving
- kcalories
- 531
- protein
- 16g
- carbs
- 79.6g
- fat
- 17g
- saturates
- 8g
- fibre
- 12g
- sugar
- 31g
- salt
- 3.95g
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion, halved and sliced
- 2 large carrots (500g/1lb 2oz in total), cut into sugar-cube size pieces
- 2 tbsp thyme chopped
- 200ml red wine
- 400g can chopped tomatoes
- 2 vegetable stock cubes
- 410g can green lentils
- 950g sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
- 25g butter
- 85g vegetarian mature cheddar, grated
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Method
- Heat the oil in a frying pan, then fry the onion until golden. Add the carrots and all but a sprinkling of thyme. Pour in the wine, 150ml water and the tomatoes, then sprinkle in the stock cubes and simmer for 10 mins. Tip in the can of lentils, including their juice, then cover and simmer for another 10 mins until the carrots still have a bit of bite and the lentils are pulpy.
- Meanwhile, boil the sweet potatoes for 15 mins until tender, drain well, then mash with the butter and season to taste. Pile the lentil mixture into a pie dish, spoon the mash on top, then sprinkle over the cheese and remaining thyme. The pie can now be covered and chilled for 2 days, or frozen for up to a month.
- Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Cook for 20 mins if cooking straight away, or for 40 mins from chilled, until golden and hot all the way through. Serve with broccoli.
Recipe from Good Food magazine, May 2007
Comments, questions and tips
Comments
i think this recipe is a bit bland. But when I added a bit of chilli and some oregano and mixed a whole boursin cheeese with garlic into the mash, it became very tasty. My daughter is a vegetarian and I find this again and again. Vegetarian recipes can be so boring! I also threw in some mushrooms and some spinach.
Delicious, filling, and easy to make. I added all of the wine and slightly less water (100 ml), and after 10 minutes of uncovered simmering over a medium-high heat the mixture came out nice and thick and not runny at all. I substituted the cheddar (which isn't readily available where I live) for some well-aged Gouda, which provided a nice tangy flavour that complemented the sweetness of the mashed potatoes. Next time I would use more cheese though, as well as some garlic and perhaps additional herbs & spices.
I really enjoyed this dish. I cut the carrots fairly small (about half a sugar cube rather than a whole one) as this was my preference and they were still plenty crunchy enough. I also agree with the reduction of liquid. I drained the lentils and reduced the wine a bit and there was still plenty of liquid. I will be making this one again as it went down well with my small children.
Delicious recepie. First time cook looking to make some healthy dinners and decided on this one. Added mushrooms, mixed herbs, garlic and a dash of worcester sauce but reduced the amount of 'lentil juice' as previous comments stated the mixture could be a bit runny. Would reccommend this dish to everyone, will cook this many times in the future!
My son made this at school in his Food Tech class as a 'budget meal'. We loved it, but his class mates weren't so sure about the chunks of carrot. I'm making it for dinner tonight and will try grating the carrots instead. I'll leave out the wine too. No sweet potatoes, so we'll have ordinary spuds with a bit of celeriac.