How to Prepare Perfect Vegan Shepherd's Pie

Vegan Shepherd's Pie. Shepherd's pie is pure comfort food, and this vegan version will satisfy the taste buds of the vegetarians in the crowd. My family wasn't big on casseroles growing up and John and I aren't big on them now, but this recipe may be our one exception. Traditional Shepherd's pie contains ground beef, which I considered swapping for walnuts, a combination of mushrooms and walnuts, or lentils.

Storing the vegan shepherd's pie is super easy! Shepherd's pie is a classic British dish traditionally made with meat. However, I veganized it by adding vegetable protein (lentils) to make it comforting, nutritious, warm, and filling, as well as cruelty-free. You can have Vegan Shepherd's Pie using 16 ingredients and 23 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Vegan Shepherd's Pie

1. It's 500 g of rinsed, 12h-soaked green&brown lentils*.
2. You need 1500 g of water.
3. It's to taste of salt & pepper.
4. You need 1 of large white onion ca.175g.
5. You need 4-6 of garlic cloves ca.20g.
6. It's 3-4 of carrots ca.200g.
7. You need of Olive oil (or vegan butter).
8. You need 4 sprigs of fresh thyme or 1½tsp dryied thyme.
9. You need 2420 g of diced potatoes (came from a packet of 3kg).
10. Prepare of salted water (e.g. 2tbsp of smoked salt).
11. It's 260 g of cashews.
12. It's 340 g of water (e.g. reuse potato water).
13. You need of herb salt.
14. Prepare of ground pepper.
15. You need of ground nutmeg.
16. You need of or the equivalent in jarred precooked lentils.

Since the vegan shepherd's pie is so hearty with the mushroom base and starchy potato topping, it doesn't need much to go along with it. A nice green salad is the perfect complement to the rich flavors of the casserole, and I like having it with a glass of red wine to go along with the mushroom gravy. This vegan shepherd's pie is what (dinner) dreams are made of! Jaye was the one who conceived of it (he's great with the savory stuff!) and he wanted to experiment with chopping up mushrooms super fine and putting them in with the veggie mince to create a really hearty texture.

Vegan Shepherd's Pie instructions

1. Rub 27x36cm casserole with raw garlic clove, grease with vegan butter or olive oil (a spray is easiest).
2. Boil lentils in 1.5 l of water for 40min (or use 2x 660g glas jars of lentils).
3. Or cook lentils w/out soaking in thermomix.
4. If termomix available: add 500g lentils, tbsp veggie broth powder and 1.5l water; program 100°C for 40min reverse speed 1. Done :).
5. Lentils into casserole.
6. Add salt & pepper to please your taste.
7. Mince garlic (in tmx at speed 7), onion, carrots (tmx 5) and sautee with thyme in olive oil (tmx varoma speed 1 for 3min).
8. Add garlic etc to lentils in casserole and combine everything.
9. Let heat up and simmer at low temperature.
10. Grind pepper over lentils if desired.
11. Peal off knobbly parts of potato. I often leave a large amount of skin on because I like it. Choose what you prefer..
12. Dice potatoes and start boiling salted water in pot.
13. When water is boiling add the potatoes, cover with lid and set timer for 15 minutes.
14. During cooking time you will need to lessen heat so potatoes don't boil over.
15. Preheat 220℃ oven.
16. Potatoes need to be very soft for mashing, and if done, pour out water (keep it for making cashew cream).
17. Potatoes back into pot, lid on and now blend cashews with water at highest speed for 90 seconds.
18. Start mashing up potatoes, add cashew cream (depending on type of potato you might not need all of the cream) and a dab of butter. Add salt, nutmeg and pepper to your taste..
19. If using separate frying pan, transfer thickened lentils to casserole. Lentils are the base layer.
20. Top with mashed potatoes.
21. Into oven for 10-15 minutes until mash is a bit browned at peaks.
22. If lentils are a bit liquidy you can use hot-air oven, then please turn down to 200℃.
23. As I have left the peal on half of the potatoes, you can see specks of it in the baked potato crust of this just out-of-the-oven delicious shepherd's pie.

It's still cold and rainy here, so the comfort food continues! This week has been filled with Vegan Lasagna, Hearty Soups, Baked Vegan Mac and Cheese, and this Vegan Shepherd's Pie. I've always loved Shepherd's Pie but I never made my own version before, so I thought it would be fun to veganize Gordon Ramsay's Version. I'm not sure how happy Gordon would be about this, so thankfully we are at. The best Vegan Shepherd's Pie recipe with lots of mushrooms in a silky red wine gravy and pillowy olive oil mashed potatoes topping.