Shepherd’s Pie
Shepherd’s Pie is comfort food at it’s best. Flavorful ground meat is mixed with a simple blend of peas, carrots and green beans, and in the recipe Cherie Randall submitted for the Primal Blueprint Cookbook Contest, topped with a creamy layer of buttery cauliflower puree. Once you’ve tasted the smooth texture and rich flavor of cauliflower whipped with butter you’ll want to start eating it straight out of bowl with a spoon. But for this recipe in particular it’s worth waiting to experience the whole dish together. Alone, ground meat and frozen vegetables may not seem like anything special. But when combined with the cauliflower puree into Shepherd’s Pie, the result is the type of home cooked meal all of us wish was waiting for us at the end of a long day.
Ingredients:
- 1 head cauliflower
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1-3 tablespoons cream (optional)
- salt & pepper taste
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 cup frozen organic peas & carrots, thawed
- 3/4 cup frozen organic green beans, thawed
- 1 pound ground grass-fed beef or bison
- 1 tablespoon coconut flour or almond flour
- 3/4 cup beef stock or broth
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried
- 2 tablespoons butter
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Break the cauliflower into chunky pieces and steam until just tender.
Put in the food processor with 2 tablespoons butter and process until smooth. Add salt & pepper to taste.
Optional: Add cream 1 tablespoon at a time until smooth but still fairly thick. Set aside.
Heat oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion and sauté several minutes until soft. Add beef and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring to break up the meat so it browns evenly. Add peas, carrots and green beans and cook another five minutes.
Stir in the coconut flour. Add broth and herbs and reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from skillet and put into a 9-inch pie pan. Spread the cauliflower over the top.
Scatter 2 tablespoons of butter cut into small pieces on top of the cauliflower. Bake 30-35 minutes.
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Posted By: Worker Bee
Traditional Sheperd’s Pie (with “mash” — potato) is an occasional cheat for me down at the pub — and plus, the gravy is pretty hearty so I suspect it probbly has nefarious thickeners.
Any rate, I’ve been thinking about doing a paleo version.
In trying various purees — cauliflower, parsnip, celery root — and combos & thereof, even sometimes with a bit of potato for body, I have to say that parsnip seems the smoothest.
So, I think that would work excellently here as well.
thats a cottage pie, not a shepherd’s pie. a shepherd’s pie is made with Lamb
Try this with ground venison
oh, yeah! new england just got so cold, and it’s only gonna get worse. shepherd’s pie is such a good one. love it, cherie. thanks.
*drools*
Looks fantastic! Thanks!
Mash cauliflower is a mainstay in my diet! I’ve eaten a similar recipe to this — only real difference is I excluded green beans. Delicious!
I’m actually heading out to the market right now and I’ll be sure to pick up more cauliflower. Great reminder.
This looks great! Do you think anyone will mind if I put a version of it on my menu??
Thanks for the recipe. I really appreciate this kind of written detailed recipe to a video. This will be much easier to cook from.
I have a jar of roast drippings in the frig that I’ll substitute for the liquids and the rest of the ingredients on hand so I think I’ll try this this weekend as our evenings finally get chilly.
Looks super delicious!
I think I have almost everything in my house to make this. I think a pint of Guiness would have to follow though.
I always felt like I ate a bowl full of cement when I ate mashed potatoes. So, caluliflower faux-tatoes are far superior for my taste. Just add a clove (or two) of garlic to that mash and I’m in!
“Add salt to taste”
Sorry but I can’t go along with that.
Salt is not needed, just add plenty of pepper.
There is no reason why you ever need to add salt.
Bill, I have to disagree. If you eat completely primal, your diet will be low on sodium, something you really don’t want. It is a good thing to add a bit of sea salt to things every day to make sure you aren’t sodium deficient.
There IS adequate salt, occurring naturally in a primal diet. My main protein comes from oily fish, prawns, mussels and offal from pastured animals. No added salt at all, for 2 years now.
It would seem that you are probably addicted to salt to some degree.
Mentors such as Art De Vany don’t add salt to their diet.
To be honest, I don’t need to add the salt at all. I do it for my general well being though. At small doses salt will not have any ill effects, and if anything is beneficial to you. This is especially true if you are doing any types of hard work outs where you are sweating a lot. Marathon runners supplement sodium during their races…obviously an extreme example, but it is good to have some extra sodium in your diet.
there is nothing wrong with natural sea salt (celtic salt, gray salt, fleur de sel etc. are all fine). regular table salt I agree is not ok but there is nothing unhealthy about using real salt from nature.
what about the taste? don’t you find food bland without it?
I am replying to Kat’s comment below. No reply option on her post.
I always add other spices such as chillies, turmeric and ginger. Also generous amounts of garlic. All beneficial for cooling inflammation. Check out Dr. Art Ayers excellent blog -http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/
Up the spices, and you don’t need salt for flavouring. After a few weeks, salt is no longer an issue. I eat zero processed food, so added salt does not happen.
I grew up with Shepherd’s Pie and have done a similar recipe. The veggies are not necessarily standard but I add them. I always use fresh carrots. Fresh beans are not so easy here in the midwest (we’ve already had 41/2 inches of snow and this was before folks could rake the leaves) so I get frozen French beans from Trader Joe’s but maybe they’re not organic? Frozen peas are a great addition but I only add a half cup since I already have the carrots.
As for seasoning with salt and pepper it’s simply a matter of taste, I used to like to tell people eating my food to add salt as needed but even before they taste the food (with or without this suggestion) so many would pour on the salt. I went to culinary school where you are marked down if you don’t season so I do do it now.
And for Bill, I understand your concern about salt. So much processed food is supersaturated with salt and some chef’s at fine dining establishments over-salt for my taste. But if you’re cooking real foods you can safely salt for the taste of those eating the meal. There’s absolutely no evidence that the normal kidney can’t handle the amount of salt in a well prepared diet.
I feel dumb. I totally used to make this on a regular basis when I started losing weight at the beginning of the year. Somehow it just kinda fell out of the regular rotation and I hadn’t thought of picking it back up now that I’m trying low-carb.
Doh!
By the way, this is technically Cottage Pie when made with beef, Shepherd’s Pie when made with lamb. Well, if we’re being technical we wouldn’t be using cauliflower too, but you know.
Wait a minute!!! In the true Paleo diet handbooks, it’s often referenced that one ought not eat BEANS or PEAS – a legume, no? What is the story, and why the contradiction here?? And Mark, is there a complete list of permitted/encouraged foods somewhere on your website, that I haven’t yet found? I keep seeing piecemeal articles, but no comprehensive lists! Please and thank you. =) -J
The green bean is a vegetable – it is eaten fresh, pod and all. It will never develop into a pod that you would remove the “beans” from. Legumes come from inedible pods…you eat the bean inside.
I’d like to see the comprehensive list as well.
I agree with Bill. Too much salt. Especially in the beef broth.
Back in January I was diagnosed with (very) high blood pressure. Instead of taking those horrid, expensive blood pressure medications, I opted to reduce my sodium levels. I estimate my sodium intake now to average less than 700 mg per day and my blood pressure is down to the level of a 20 year old athlete.
There is sodium in fresh spinach, fresh celery, etc. According to my minor research one only needs about 500 mg per day and eating the proper foods one can easily get one’s required daily sodium.
The government, not that I trust them, says the maximum sodium intake is to be 2400 mg per day. Some “experts” are now saying 1500 mg/day. One teaspoon of salt has just under 2400 mg of sodium.
I made my own beef broth and therefore it contained no sodium.
Sea salts can be a good source of minerals.
Relax about the 10 green beans people! They’re not all that much less paleo than the other stuff you eat! Count them in your 20.
http://castlegrok.com/what-our-ancestors-ate/
I made an improvised version of this recipe last night. I’d had visions of Shepherd’s pie dancing in my head since I read this post, but I didn’t have the same ingredients on hand. My substitutes: pastured ground pork for beef, fresh carrots and leeks for the frozen veg, dried oregano for the herbs, and I left out the flour (well, I forgot it). Absolutely delicious! Since we already have Shepherd’s Pie (lamb)and Cottage Pie (beef), shall we call it… Piggy Pie?
Off the bat this was missing some flavor. Add a 1 tbl of tomato paste, 2 tsp of Worchestshire sauce, generous pinch of spicy paprika and generous ground pepper. Then you have yourself a Shepherd’s pie.
Mixing pureed cauliflower and parsnips is a nice combo.
Sodium is nothing to worry about. The AHA recommends reducing your sodium intake by half, or close to 1500mg/day. Doing that has very very very little affect on blood pressure/hypertension. Your body craves salty,fatty, and sweet foods for a reason.
“Your body craves salty,fatty, and sweet foods for a reason.”
The reason is that you have probably had added salt in your food all your life. You are an addict in denial.
Bill,thanks for the personal attack. But no, I am not an “addict” as you call it. I rarely add salt to my meals,and have lived that way all my life. My meals,by the way are not processed either. Are you claiming that children at birth are addicts because they seek out what they instinctively desire?
Greggor, I apologise, there was no personal attack intended.
I just don’t see how you can quote from the AHA as being the guidelines on dietary matters to follow, or believe.
There are so many conflicts with the PB ethos.
I think you are mistaken about salt intake and blood pressure. My body, after 2 salt free years tells me different.
As for newborns, I thought they craved the perfect natural food from their mothers’ breast.
My quote was contradicting the AHA’s guidelines. If you were to decrease your sodium intake by half, or to/below 1500mg/day, it would decrease your blood pressure by about 2mm/Hg. People with even the first stage of hypertension have their blood pressure already raised 20mm/Hg. I think that you may be attributing your lower blood pressure with your lowered intake of sodium, instead (I’m assuming that since you follow PB, you live it)of the restriction of refined grains/carbohydrates.
Yes, newborns do crave their mothers milk. Human milk has all of those attributes. As soon as a child is weaned off of it’s mothers milk, it will seek out the foods that satisfy it’s primal appetite.
I hope that Mark picks up on this topic and the whole issue can be addressed by others in more depth.
To me, it’s all about adherence to principals, based on informed choices and deduced logic. Right or wrong, only time will tell.
Made this last night (and had the rest for breakfast). My 6 year old son said they were some of the best potatoes he’s ever had. I figured it best not to correct him, as it was one of the few meals he’s inhaled.
This is the answer to my prayers! Thank you!
MMMMMMM soooo good! I made 2
Literally amazed by this recipie – the best Sheperds Pie I have ever tasted. Made this Sunday evening for Dinner in the hope that I could take Microwave it at work for my packed lunch – no chance! Everybody ate the lot and wanted seconds. You must try this recipie – the Cauliflower (I added a bit of cream) was truly mouth watering and the taste of the pie with the herbs in it was great!
It would be very helpful if you could list the nutrition contents for your recipes. I am on Weight Watchers and this would make my life a lot easier. Always helpful to know the fat content, calories and fibre!
Made this last night – it was great! I did use ground lamb which was very tasty. Also added butternut squash, a half cup of red wine, and a tablespoon of tomato paste to kick it up a notch. Threw in a bit of sour cream and green onions into the Cauliflower as well. Great Fall dish!
A word of CAUTION regarding the low/no salt advice
being discussed here – this advice may NOT apply to
people who have LOW blood pressure. I have low-
blood pressure because of genetics. Every healthcare
professional whether standard or alternative urges me
to keep salt in my diet and to carry it with me, esp. in
hot weather (heavy sweating can make it worse). For
people who’s low blood pressure is caused by some
sort of disorder, check with your doctor.
I’ve made this recipe 3 times now. We absolutely love it. My 7 year loves the mashed cauliflower and requests with other meals he enjoys. I like to use turkey sausage meat with a homemade chicken broth instead of the beef. Thank you Cherie Randall for the lovely recipe.
I just bought a beautiful purple cauliflower from my local organic market..and I cannot wait to make a purple Shepard’s Pie! It’s gonna be great!!!
jesus christ people, shut up about the salt already! it’s a chuffing recipe. i think you’ll find most recipes call to be seasoned with salt + pepper.