**Cottage Pie Recipe: A Delicious and Easy-to-Make Dish**

When it comes to comforting and delicious meals, cottage pie is one of the most popular options. This classic dish consists of ground beef, topped with a layer of mashed potatoes and baked to perfection. In this article, we'll guide you through the process of making a mouth-watering cottage pie that's sure to become a family favorite.

**Preparing the Ingredients**

Before we begin, let's talk about the importance of using fresh and high-quality ingredients. For this recipe, we're using a nice moist ground beef, which is essential for achieving that perfect balance of flavors and textures. We're also using our mashed potatoes as the topping, which we'll get to in a minute. The other essential components include butter, cream, Tabasco sauce, vermouth, salt, pepper, and mushrooms (optional).

**Making the Mashed Potatoes**

To start making our cottage pie, we need to prepare the mashed potatoes. We're using a simple recipe that combines butter, cream, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Chef Caleb likes to add a little dash of Tabasco sauce and vermouth to give it an extra boost of flavor. We'll also be adding some grated cheese on top (optional) to add an extra layer of flavor.

To make the mashed potatoes, we simply drain them in a colander and then return them to the pan with butter, cream, salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce, and vermouth. We mix everything together until it's reasonably smooth, but not too perfect – after all, this is just a topping! A little bit of texture never hurt anyone.

**Adding Mushrooms (Optional)**

For those who enjoy adding a bit of extra flavor and texture to their cottage pie, we're going to add some sautéed mushrooms. These can be a bit of a divisive ingredient, but trust us, they make all the difference. We'll simply chop the mushrooms roughly and add them to the pan with a little butter until they're nice and tender.

**Assembling the Casserole**

Now that our mashed potatoes are ready, it's time to assemble our casserole. We'll spread our cooked ground beef onto the bottom of the dish, followed by a layer of sautéed mushrooms (if using). Then comes the mashed potato mixture, which we'll spread evenly over the top. To add an extra touch, we'll sprinkle some grated cheese on top – because everything is better with cheese, right?

**Baking the Cottage Pie**

With our casserole assembled, it's time to put it in the oven. We're using a 375°F preheated oven and baking for about half an hour, or until the top is golden brown and crispy. If you want to get really fancy, we can add a bit of cheese under the broiler to give it an extra burst of flavor.

**The Finished Product**

And there you have it – our delicious cottage pie, fresh out of the oven! The mashed potatoes are creamy and smooth, while the ground beef is flavorful and tender. The addition of mushrooms adds a nice textural element that's sure to please even the pickiest eaters. To serve, we'll simply slice up the pie and garnish with some fresh parsley and a side salad.

**Tips and Variations**

One of the best things about cottage pie is its versatility. Want to try something new? Go for it! You can add garlic to your ground beef, use different types of cheese, or even throw in some extra vegetables like carrots or peas. The possibilities are endless, and we love that about this recipe.

If you're feeling adventurous, be sure to check out our video tutorial for a step-by-step guide on making the perfect cottage pie. And don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more delicious recipes and cooking tips!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enand welcome back to love your food as the weather starts to get colder we have a great hearty meal idea for you here this is cottage pie now this is the beef version of shepherd's pie of course you're using lamb in here it would be a shepherd's pie but they're very similar again pretty easy to customize this recipe we're going to show you a few variation of our own variations on this one and this is a favorite it's really easy stay it keeps really well in the fridge so we're gonna start off with out our potatoes we like to add some corn in ours of course your standard we've got celery carrots we're gonna add some mushrooms to ours we have an onion we're gonna add some shallot as well and of course here is our beef now this is about medium lean we want some fat in there to keep everything together and also we're gonna use it to fry our vegetables so starting off the first thing you want to do of course is get your potatoes boiling so pretty sizable pieces here they don't need to be tiny tiny but enough to cook quickly and we're gonna get those going now if you find any in there that are just a little too big go ahead get that sized right and we're gonna get our water in there so you want to cover them with cold water make sure they are well covered and then that is gonna go right over to the stove we're gonna put that on a pretty high heat let these two boil quickly good generous helping of salt in there potatoes do ask for a lot of salt and get that covered and get that boiling and while that is happening we are going to start on our other things so here we go let's start we're gonna start by browning our meat now of course as usual we do want to season that before it hits the pan a little bit of salt a little bit of fresh black pepper on there now we also have a little spice mix for this as well and we'll show you that in a little while but first we're gonna get this side going we're gonna get that nice and brown on the pan and while that's going we're gonna start seasoning the other side so this is a little bit of mustard powder some powdered garlic and again a little bit of salt and pepper as well there we go so we're gonna get that browning in there you do want to break it up a little bit now and get that get that side nice and brown if you don't season your meat before you start cooking with it your end result will not end up as flavorful you really want to get those spices infused in your food you really want to wake up the flavors with a little bit of a little bit of heat in there as well so while that's going we're gonna start preparing our vegetables to go into that pan as well so we're gonna chop up our carrot now these can be a little chunkier or a little smaller depending on the texture you're looking for in your final result we're gonna actually cut these slightly chunky they're not going to be tiny tiny but they're also going to be small enough that they're gonna cook fairly quickly so here you can see chef Caleb just cutting those into quarters and that's it for the carrots the shallots we do want those to cook a little faster so we're gonna cook cut those a little finer but they don't have to be super finely diced or anything they don't have to be tiny the onion we're just going to give a nice regular dice on the onion that's about as far as we have to go there and then for the celery again it's gonna cook pretty thoroughly we're gonna be cooking it twice of course it's going once in the pan and then it's gonna get baked briefly as well once we get all the potatoes and the we're gonna put some cheese on top as well so again fairly small for the celery but not finely diced or anything like that it is going to have a little presence a little bit of texture in the final product now so there we go with our veggies once we've got some good color on that one side we are going to stir up our beef here make sure that all that red and uncooked beef is gonna get mixed in there this also gives an opportunity for the spices and the spice mix that we've made have a little bit of contact with the heat and also gives you a chance to break everything up again if it's starting to cook together now what we're gonna do is again you've seen us do this before we're gonna sort of stack the meat on one side and we're going to use the fat that comes out of it to cook our vegetables so you can see there we're getting some of that nice fat coming out so the fat that's rendered out of that beautiful ground beef and we're just gonna pop our our veggies in there so in go our carrots the shallots the onions and the celery so while that starts to cook we are going to prepare now we're going to add a little bit of corn this is of course a new world recipe or a new world version of this recipe so we just have some nice corn on the cob here we're just gonna cut that nicely off there it's super easy you can use frozen corn if you'd like if it's easier for you just get the niblets that are frozen already off the cob if there's no readily available corn to you then that's fine of course and pretty simple it's not a whole lot of preparation involved in the corn we're just gonna cut it off the cob and that's gonna break up as it cooks so that's gonna go in there and just to start off it's gonna get a little steaming and then that's gonna continue to cook once we stir it in that's a good time to salt our veggies again another little dash of black pepper as well and we're just gonna give that a little stir now you do want your vegetables cooked through and then we're gonna mix it in with the meat and let it all cook together for a little while they don't need to be thoroughly cooked but they do need to be well wilted your onions should be translucent as well as your celery so once that's cooked yeah just get everything a little stir there some people also add peas that is perfectly acceptable you can add frozen peas or if you have fresh peas on hand that is even better of course the season for fresh peas is pretty short so not really a not really a wintertime thing but if you have them feel free it's it's a great addition to this dish now if you want things to be a little juicier now you could also add something like beer to this I used to work in a an Irish pub where we would add Guinness at this point but that is entirely optional we're using a nice moist ground beef oh here we're going with our mashed potatoes so we've got butter and cream of course for our mashed potato top and we also like to add a little bit of Tabasco sauce and a little dash of vermouth as well we're going to test to make sure that our potatoes are cooked all the way through you just want that fork to go in and out pretty easily nice and soft there's gonna be a little bit of carryover and of course it is going to get cooked again a big - briefly so drain your potatoes in goes the butter in the cream you see chef Caleb here really likes to get all of that cream in there few dashes of Tabasco sauce or hot sauce of your preference and a pretty decent serving of salt and a little dash of our vermouth we just like that nice flavor we're going to start mashing that then we're gonna add a little bit of pepper and we're just gonna combine that until it is reasonably smooth it doesn't have to be super smooth that doesn't have to be amazingly creamy mashed potatoes it is basically the topping of a pie so it's okay if it's not perfect but we do want it to be well combined and all well well blended together here now is a great time to taste it make sure to the seasoning doesn't need any adjustment and then we're gonna try something a little special here we're gonna add some mushrooms to our cottage pie this is not everyone's cup of tea this is entirely optional you do not have to add mushrooms we do enjoy it we like the flavor adds a nice little textural component as well so we're just gonna chop these pretty roughly we want the texture so it's not going to be small into our pan here a little bit of butter and once that ice melted didn't do the mushrooms yeah we're just gonna wait until those get a nice little bit of color on them once again little dash of salt a little bit of black pepper so now that our mix is done we're going to get that into our casserole dish here we've got our nice we like the clear one because you can really see the layers in there so there you have the mix everything is well cooked in there our mushrooms are done now we've given those a little bit of time on the heat giving them a flip and we're just gonna toss that on top just nice little textural bonus spread those out evenly and there's all that's left to do after that is to get that topping on there so here come the potatoes and you just basically want to scoop it all onto your you're mixed there now the amount that we've given in the recipe below should be plenty to cover the size of casserole dish don't worry about perfect at first you just want to get it all on there then you're gonna spread it out and give a little good smoothing afterwards so there you go you got all of your potatoes on there try to keep it off the handle as much as possible you do want to get to keep that off the handle and then just give it a good smoothing a nice spread on top there now we do enjoy covering ours with cheese this is again entirely optional or if you don't want to use a melting cheese you can always use something like a nice coating of fresh grated Parmesan on there as well but we do we do like our cheese so we're gonna spread that on top there once again we want it nice and even and then that's gonna go into our oven so little rack at our 375 preheated oven and that's gonna go for about half an hour if you want you can always put the cheese under a broiler as well if you wanted a little browner now ours has come out just about perfect it's nice and crispy on top it's not burnt or anything the browning hasn't really overdone it but it is great it's a really nice texture everything's cooked all the way through and here we see chef Caleb's kind of divvy it up here for us and there you go so this is gonna hit the plate it can be a little bit crumbly as you can see they're a little bit escaping and there you have it we like to serve that with a salad a little garnish parsley on top as well that's gonna have all of your beautiful vegetables in there that lovely lovely seasoned beef and that great potato topping again this is a super recipe when it's getting cold outside super easy to customize as well with different flavorings for your beef you can use garlic and your mashed potatoes all sorts of things like that if you liked this recipe please do like and subscribe and if you'd like to make any suggestions for recipes you'd like to see chef Caleb try on the channel please let us know in the comments below and remember to love your foodand welcome back to love your food as the weather starts to get colder we have a great hearty meal idea for you here this is cottage pie now this is the beef version of shepherd's pie of course you're using lamb in here it would be a shepherd's pie but they're very similar again pretty easy to customize this recipe we're going to show you a few variation of our own variations on this one and this is a favorite it's really easy stay it keeps really well in the fridge so we're gonna start off with out our potatoes we like to add some corn in ours of course your standard we've got celery carrots we're gonna add some mushrooms to ours we have an onion we're gonna add some shallot as well and of course here is our beef now this is about medium lean we want some fat in there to keep everything together and also we're gonna use it to fry our vegetables so starting off the first thing you want to do of course is get your potatoes boiling so pretty sizable pieces here they don't need to be tiny tiny but enough to cook quickly and we're gonna get those going now if you find any in there that are just a little too big go ahead get that sized right and we're gonna get our water in there so you want to cover them with cold water make sure they are well covered and then that is gonna go right over to the stove we're gonna put that on a pretty high heat let these two boil quickly good generous helping of salt in there potatoes do ask for a lot of salt and get that covered and get that boiling and while that is happening we are going to start on our other things so here we go let's start we're gonna start by browning our meat now of course as usual we do want to season that before it hits the pan a little bit of salt a little bit of fresh black pepper on there now we also have a little spice mix for this as well and we'll show you that in a little while but first we're gonna get this side going we're gonna get that nice and brown on the pan and while that's going we're gonna start seasoning the other side so this is a little bit of mustard powder some powdered garlic and again a little bit of salt and pepper as well there we go so we're gonna get that browning in there you do want to break it up a little bit now and get that get that side nice and brown if you don't season your meat before you start cooking with it your end result will not end up as flavorful you really want to get those spices infused in your food you really want to wake up the flavors with a little bit of a little bit of heat in there as well so while that's going we're gonna start preparing our vegetables to go into that pan as well so we're gonna chop up our carrot now these can be a little chunkier or a little smaller depending on the texture you're looking for in your final result we're gonna actually cut these slightly chunky they're not going to be tiny tiny but they're also going to be small enough that they're gonna cook fairly quickly so here you can see chef Caleb just cutting those into quarters and that's it for the carrots the shallots we do want those to cook a little faster so we're gonna cook cut those a little finer but they don't have to be super finely diced or anything they don't have to be tiny the onion we're just going to give a nice regular dice on the onion that's about as far as we have to go there and then for the celery again it's gonna cook pretty thoroughly we're gonna be cooking it twice of course it's going once in the pan and then it's gonna get baked briefly as well once we get all the potatoes and the we're gonna put some cheese on top as well so again fairly small for the celery but not finely diced or anything like that it is going to have a little presence a little bit of texture in the final product now so there we go with our veggies once we've got some good color on that one side we are going to stir up our beef here make sure that all that red and uncooked beef is gonna get mixed in there this also gives an opportunity for the spices and the spice mix that we've made have a little bit of contact with the heat and also gives you a chance to break everything up again if it's starting to cook together now what we're gonna do is again you've seen us do this before we're gonna sort of stack the meat on one side and we're going to use the fat that comes out of it to cook our vegetables so you can see there we're getting some of that nice fat coming out so the fat that's rendered out of that beautiful ground beef and we're just gonna pop our our veggies in there so in go our carrots the shallots the onions and the celery so while that starts to cook we are going to prepare now we're going to add a little bit of corn this is of course a new world recipe or a new world version of this recipe so we just have some nice corn on the cob here we're just gonna cut that nicely off there it's super easy you can use frozen corn if you'd like if it's easier for you just get the niblets that are frozen already off the cob if there's no readily available corn to you then that's fine of course and pretty simple it's not a whole lot of preparation involved in the corn we're just gonna cut it off the cob and that's gonna break up as it cooks so that's gonna go in there and just to start off it's gonna get a little steaming and then that's gonna continue to cook once we stir it in that's a good time to salt our veggies again another little dash of black pepper as well and we're just gonna give that a little stir now you do want your vegetables cooked through and then we're gonna mix it in with the meat and let it all cook together for a little while they don't need to be thoroughly cooked but they do need to be well wilted your onions should be translucent as well as your celery so once that's cooked yeah just get everything a little stir there some people also add peas that is perfectly acceptable you can add frozen peas or if you have fresh peas on hand that is even better of course the season for fresh peas is pretty short so not really a not really a wintertime thing but if you have them feel free it's it's a great addition to this dish now if you want things to be a little juicier now you could also add something like beer to this I used to work in a an Irish pub where we would add Guinness at this point but that is entirely optional we're using a nice moist ground beef oh here we're going with our mashed potatoes so we've got butter and cream of course for our mashed potato top and we also like to add a little bit of Tabasco sauce and a little dash of vermouth as well we're going to test to make sure that our potatoes are cooked all the way through you just want that fork to go in and out pretty easily nice and soft there's gonna be a little bit of carryover and of course it is going to get cooked again a big - briefly so drain your potatoes in goes the butter in the cream you see chef Caleb here really likes to get all of that cream in there few dashes of Tabasco sauce or hot sauce of your preference and a pretty decent serving of salt and a little dash of our vermouth we just like that nice flavor we're going to start mashing that then we're gonna add a little bit of pepper and we're just gonna combine that until it is reasonably smooth it doesn't have to be super smooth that doesn't have to be amazingly creamy mashed potatoes it is basically the topping of a pie so it's okay if it's not perfect but we do want it to be well combined and all well well blended together here now is a great time to taste it make sure to the seasoning doesn't need any adjustment and then we're gonna try something a little special here we're gonna add some mushrooms to our cottage pie this is not everyone's cup of tea this is entirely optional you do not have to add mushrooms we do enjoy it we like the flavor adds a nice little textural component as well so we're just gonna chop these pretty roughly we want the texture so it's not going to be small into our pan here a little bit of butter and once that ice melted didn't do the mushrooms yeah we're just gonna wait until those get a nice little bit of color on them once again little dash of salt a little bit of black pepper so now that our mix is done we're going to get that into our casserole dish here we've got our nice we like the clear one because you can really see the layers in there so there you have the mix everything is well cooked in there our mushrooms are done now we've given those a little bit of time on the heat giving them a flip and we're just gonna toss that on top just nice little textural bonus spread those out evenly and there's all that's left to do after that is to get that topping on there so here come the potatoes and you just basically want to scoop it all onto your you're mixed there now the amount that we've given in the recipe below should be plenty to cover the size of casserole dish don't worry about perfect at first you just want to get it all on there then you're gonna spread it out and give a little good smoothing afterwards so there you go you got all of your potatoes on there try to keep it off the handle as much as possible you do want to get to keep that off the handle and then just give it a good smoothing a nice spread on top there now we do enjoy covering ours with cheese this is again entirely optional or if you don't want to use a melting cheese you can always use something like a nice coating of fresh grated Parmesan on there as well but we do we do like our cheese so we're gonna spread that on top there once again we want it nice and even and then that's gonna go into our oven so little rack at our 375 preheated oven and that's gonna go for about half an hour if you want you can always put the cheese under a broiler as well if you wanted a little browner now ours has come out just about perfect it's nice and crispy on top it's not burnt or anything the browning hasn't really overdone it but it is great it's a really nice texture everything's cooked all the way through and here we see chef Caleb's kind of divvy it up here for us and there you go so this is gonna hit the plate it can be a little bit crumbly as you can see they're a little bit escaping and there you have it we like to serve that with a salad a little garnish parsley on top as well that's gonna have all of your beautiful vegetables in there that lovely lovely seasoned beef and that great potato topping again this is a super recipe when it's getting cold outside super easy to customize as well with different flavorings for your beef you can use garlic and your mashed potatoes all sorts of things like that if you liked this recipe please do like and subscribe and if you'd like to make any suggestions for recipes you'd like to see chef Caleb try on the channel please let us know in the comments below and remember to love your food\n"