In Episode 074 we are making Shepherd’s Pie with Ground Turkey for dinner. Susie shares the full audio recipe including all the tips and tricks to make it perfect. This Shepherd’s Pie is full of ground turkey, carrots, onions, and peas all in a red wine and beef broth gravy, topped with a savory mashed potato and then baked in the oven.
Serve it up with roasted veggies, rolls and butter and a green side salad.
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Transcript
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74 Shepherds pie_final
Intro: Hey, hey. Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.
Susie Weinrich: So today we have the ultimate of all ultimate comfort food. It’s definitely a family favorite of my family and extended family as well. Today we are making a ground Turkey shepherd’s pie for dinner. You’re absolutely going to love it. It has all of the traditional flavors, except we’re using ground Turkey instead of ground beef. It’s got the carrots, the onions, the peas, and then it’s topped with a super flavorful mashed potato baked in the oven. Then your dinner is ready. You’re absolutely going to love this one.
Tips and Tricks: Let’s talk about a couple tips with this recipe before we get started with the full recipe. Number one, this one is going to use a little bit of red wine, and I absolutely love cooking with both red and white wine in the kitchen. So the wine is just going to add a little bit of depth of flavor. You’re going to cook it enough so that the alcohol is going to cook out. But the other thing is that you’re only going to use about a half a cup of red wine. So you want to use something that you also want to drink, because half a cup out of a whole bottle is nothing.
The other tip, or I guess just good advice is anytime you have a good amount of leftover mashed potatoes, this recipe should be top of mind because 50% of the recipe is making the mashed potatoes. So if you already have those done, this is going to be the perfect recipe, not only to use up those leftover mashed potatoes, but to have an amazing dinner. Now of course, if you don’t want to make your own mashed potatoes, you can absolutely use a store bought, pre-made mashed potato. I think some people will use the Bob Evans mashed potatoes, you know, that come in a little tub. Or you could go to your deli and get some mashed potatoes from the deli. Or if your store carries frozen mashed potatoes. I know that Trader Joe’s carries really great frozen mashed potatoes, you could use those as well.
The other ingredient, the ground Turkey, if you would rather use ground chicken or ground pork or ground beef, you can absolutely make that substitution. The one thing I’ll say about using ground Turkey, you want to make sure that you’re not using the 99% lean ground Turkey. That stuff will cook up like the bottom of your shoe. It will be super chewy and flavorless. You want to opt for the 93/7 lean ground Turkey. That just means that 7% of the mixture is fat, and that is what gives it flavor, good texture, and moisture.
Shepherds Pie Recipe: Let’s go ahead and get into the full recipe. We’re going to start by making the mashed potatoes and what you want to do is take two to two and a half pounds of rustic potatoes that are peeled and cut into one to two inch chunks and place them in cool salted water. Then you just want to boil them or simmer them over medium heat until they’re about fork tender, so that’s going to be around 15 minutes.
You’ll drain those potatoes and return them back to the pan that you boiled them in, and you’ll mash them using either a potato masher, a potato ricer, or just a handheld mixer. You will also mix in a quarter cup of sour cream, five tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons of milk, either whole milk or half and half work really well here. One teaspoon of kosher salt and one fresh garlic clove that’s minced. So blend all of that together until it’s nice and smooth. Give it a little taste and make sure it tastes just how you want it. Then you can go ahead and set those aside and we’re going to make the filling for the shepherd’s pie.
What I recommend doing here is making the filling in the pan that will also go in the oven. So you want to make sure you have an oven safe pan. What I love using is a 12 inch cast iron skillet. It works perfectly for the Shepherds Pie. Now you can also use a 10 inch skillet, but if you use a 10 inch, it’s going to really fill the pan up to the rim. So when it goes in the oven, you’re going to want to put a rimmed baking sheet underneath. You shouldn’t need that when you use a 12 inch.
All right, so let’s get onto the filling. In that skillet, you’re going to place it over medium heat, and you’re going to add one tablespoon, up to two tablespoons of olive oil. Then you’ll add one small onion that’s been diced, a half a cup of celery that’s been diced, and a half a cup of carrots that are peeled and diced. Go ahead and saute that around the pan for about five minutes until the carrots and the celery start to soften just a little bit. Then you’re going to stir in one pound of lean ground Turkey, so that’s the 93/7 ground Turkey that we were talking about and three minced garlic cloves. While you cook that ground Turkey through, you can just crumble it up using either a wooden spatula or one of those meat mashers. If you don’t have a meat masher in your kitchen, it’s an item that I use all the time. It’s like if you took a wooden spatula and made five prongs on it, and it works through ground Turkey, ground pork, ground beef, sausage, everything perfectly. So I will link that piece of equipment in the show notes for you.
So you’ll crumble that Turkey and brown it until it’s all the way cooked through, so about five minutes. Then you’re going to stir in one heaping and teaspoon of fresh chopped rosemary. You could also sub fresh thyme here if you don’t like rosemary, or if you prefer thyme. A quarter teaspoon of ground sage, one and a half teaspoons of kosher salt, a half a teaspoon of black pepper, one teaspoon of onion powder, two tablespoons of tomato paste. Give that a stir around the pan, and then you’re going to sprinkle in two tablespoons of all-purpose flour. Stir that in the mixture so it coats all of the veggies and the ground Turkey. Then you’re going to deglaze the bottom of the pan with the red wine. So you’re going to pour in a half a cup of red wine, a Cabernet, Merlot, Malbec, Pinot noir, any of those would work really well. What you want to do is when that liquid hits the pan and it sizzles really fast and steams, you want to scrape up any little bits that are cooked to the bottom of the pan, and that’s called deglazing. So you’ll want to reduce that at this point. So about four to five minutes, just let that simmer in the pan. Then finally, you’re going to stir in one and a half cups of beef broth, one cup of frozen peas, and one tablespoon of worcestershire sauce. Give that a really good stir and let it simmer for about two to three minutes. Then we’re ready to assemble everything.
Now, one note though about your filling for the Shepherd’s Pie. If you like it just a little bit sier, you can absolutely add in an additional quarter cup to a half a cup of beef broth or red wine would be good too. You’ll take those mashed potatoes and dollop them on top of the filling that you just made the ground Turkey filling. Then what I like to do is take the back of a spoon and smooth it and spread it from edge to edge of the pan. Then I like to make some little swoops and swooshes in the mashed potatoes because those will get kind of brown in the oven and be so tasty and crispy.
So you will then take that skillet that is totally prepared and bake it at 350 for about 30 minutes. If you like the topping, the mashed potato topping a little bit more golden brown, you can absolutely pop it under the broiler for just a few minutes. But you do want to watch it because it will burn fast if you turn your back on it.
So at the end, you will take that Shepherds Pie out of the oven and just let it rest for about five to 10 minutes before serving. At our house, we consider Shepherds Pie, kind of like a one bowl meal or like just a complete dinner within itself. So you’ve got your protein, you have your veggie, you’ve got your starch all together in one dish. Now if you want to make it more of like a bigger dinner experience, you can absolutely add some dinner rolls, add a roasted veggie, like roasted fennel or roasted broccoli would be great. Or if it’s more of a springtime dinner, you could add roasted asparagus and then maybe even a side salad would be perfect here. With this dish, I think something like a balsamic vinaigrette or maybe like a blue cheese or a creamier dressing would be perfect.
So that does it for the full episode. As always, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode, write in the show notes for you so you can pin it, save it, make it, share it, whatever, whenever you’re ready.
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Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.
Tips Shared
Since you only use ½ cup of red wine in this filling make sure you use a wine you will like to also drink!
The ground turkey can be swapped out for ground chicken, pork or beef.
If you use a 10″ skillet you will want to place a rimmed baking sheet underneath to catch any spills in the oven.
Recipes Mentioned
Equipment Recommended
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