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. And oh wow it worked fabulously!
This veggie mince was amazing! And topped with some fabulous vegan mashed potatoes this is a super satisfying vegan dinner meal.
Cottage pie and shepherd’s pie are basically the same thing when it comes to vegan fare, but traditionally a cottage pie is based on beef and shepherd’s pie is based on lamb. But since we’re making vegan versions we can really call it whatever, but since we’ve already done a vegan cottage pie, and we did that quite differently, we’ve called this one a vegan shepherd’s pie!
To make the veggie mince you fry up some onion and garlic in some olive oil and then add in some soy mince. Ours was a frozen soy mince that you can cook directly from frozen. If yours is not frozen that’s fine, but you want it to be soy mince that’s ready to go – as in, it can be cooked up right away. If you’re using a version that needs to be hydrated first, then do that in advance.
You fry up the soy mince with the onions and garlic until the soy mince is nice and soft and browned. If your soy mince has quite chunky pieces then you can just use your spatula as you’re sautéeing it to break the pieces up and make it into a finer mince. Then you add in the chopped mushrooms.
As you can see above, we chopped up the mushrooms in the food processor, so they were super super fine, and barely even resembled mushrooms anymore, this is ideal!
Add in the mushrooms, and some soy sauce, maple syrup, dried basil and oregano and some tomato paste and mix it in. Then you add some frozen peas and carrots and sauté everything until the peas and carrots are softened and you have a deliciously thick veggie mince like you see above.
While you’re making the veggie mince you have some potatoes on the go in the next pot, and when they’re nicely soft and cooked you mash them up with some vegan butter, non-dairy milk and salt and pepper.
Layer the mince in a pie dish (a rectangular or square dish is also fine) and top with the mashed potato. Create some nice ridges in the top with your fork (looks pretty and helps with browning) and top it with some knobs of vegan butter.
Bake in the oven at 390°F (200°C) for 30 minutes. In the last 5 minutes switch it over to grill to really brown the top super nicely.
This does take a while, you’re looking at 75 minutes at least if you’re fast, but more likely 90 minutes from starting this meal to having it on the table.
But it feeds a fair few people, at least 6!
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