Recipes: Easy Shepherd’s Pie

The other day when I made Shepherd’s Pie for dinner I went ahead and made a big batch so I was able to make one casserole for dinner that night and put two in the freezer for busy nights later in the month.   The “Make 1 i& Freeze 1” recipes come in handy for those days when I cannot make a homemade meal from scratch.  It is great when I can plan ahead!  Shepherd’s Pie is not only easy to make it freezes well too.  The recipe below makes one 9×13 dish of Shepherd’s Pie, but I doubled it and split the second one into two 8×8 dishes to freeze for later.

Shepherd’s Pie Recipe:

• 1 pound Ground Beef cooked
• 1 can Green Beans (used french cut, but any will do)
• 1 can Mixed Vegetables
• 1 can Black Beans
• 1 package Brown Gravy
• Mashed Potatoes (homemade or from package, your preference)

Cook the ground beef and drain the excess oil.  Add all the brown gravy ingredients to the ground beef mixture.  Drain the vegetables and gently mix in the green beans, mixed vegetables, and black beans.  Let the beef and vegetable mixture cook for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring periodically.  Preheat the oven to 350 degree and grease a 9×13 pan (or two 8×8 pans).

While cooking the ground beef and vegetable mixture start preparing your potatoes whether from scratch or from a box or bag. Once the potatoes and beef mixture is done you can put together your Shepherd’s Pie.  The bottom layer will be your beef and vegetable mixture followed by a layer of mash potatoes.  You can sprinkle bacon or cheese over the mash potato layer if you prefer as well.  Cover and bake the Shepherd’s Pie at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

We ate one Shepherd’s Pie for dinner and these two (pictured above) are going in the freezer to be eaten at a later time!