This recipe for the ultimate comfort food, Easy Freezer-Friendly Shepherd’s Pie will soon be one of your family’s favorite meals! Ground beef and veggies smothered in a tasty gravy, topped with delicious mashed potatoes. Yum yum!
Freezer Friendly Shepherd’s Pie Recipe
This freezer-friendly Shepherd’s Pie is one of those easy to prepare comfort foods. It’s a simple meal that uses ingredients that you usually have on hand. It’s perfect for the freezer to cook another day, or you can make it ahead and refrigerate until you’re ready to cook it for dinner. This recipe includes the use of beef gravy or Shepherd’s Pie gravy, which adds a delicious touch of flavour to the Shepherd’s Pie and keeps it moist and tender.
Here’s how to make Easy Freezer Friendly Shepherd’s Pie:
Easy Freezer-Friendly Shepherd's Pie
These ingredients make enough for two 8x8 baking pans that will feed about 4 people each.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lb. lean ground beef
- 1 bag mixed frozen vegetables
- 1 small onion diced
- 1 clove garlic minced
- About 10 medium potatoes
- 6 Tbsp butter
- ½ cup milk
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 package Shepherd's Pie gravy mix prepared as per instructions
- 1 cup cheddar cheese shredded
Instructions
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Peel and cut potatoes.
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Cook in salted water until tender, about 20 minutes, drain.
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Add butter, milk and mash then set aside.
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In a large pan, add ground beef, onion, and garlic and cook until browned.
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Add bag of frozen mixed vegetables, heat through.
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In the meantime prepare gravy mix as per instructions.
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Stir gravy into meat and vegetable mix.
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Transfer to freezer safe baking dish.
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Top with mashed potato mix and sprinkle with cheddar cheese, if desired.
Freezing and Serving Directions
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Once assembled, cover freezer safe baking dish really well. Place in freezer.
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To serve, defrost, then preheat oven to 350 degrees.
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Bake for 30 minutes covered. Then bake uncovered for an additional 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.
I’m wanting to make this for my husband to take to work. Can this be microwaved if it’s frozen in smaller meal prep containers?
I don’t see why not. Everything is put into the dish already cooked so it should work well! Great idea!
I’m 39 weeks pregnant and made this today! We had one tonight and froze one. Turned out great with lots of flavour! Hubby had three servings!
Great Recipe! Easy to make and great flavor
What size of freezer container did you use? Please
I used either an 8×8 or 9×9 pan.
How much time should be allowed for defosting?
Overnight in the fridge should be good!
How big is the frozen bag of veggies? I buy those giant bags at no frills when they go on sale (generic brand), so I was just wondering how many cups. Four?
It’s a small bag of frozen veggies so I’d say about three cups of vegetables should do it. Hope this helps!
If I’m not freezing it, is the bake time the same? I want to make a double batch, one to eat right away and one to freeze.
Yes, the bake time is 30 minutes since any frozen ones should be defrosted first. 🙂
You can cook it from frozen easily. Just takes a little longer. We do this all the time
I can’t find shepherd’s pie gravy mix. Is there a substitute I could use?
I think a regular brown gravy mix would work just as well 🙂
I see you used 8×8 pans, how deep were they?
I’d say they were about an inch, inch and a half deep? They were aluminum pans from the dollar store.
Does the potato not turn wet after it’s been frozen? Usually don’t freeze well.
Because of the butter and milk added to the potatoes, it cooks up well after freezing! 🙂
Any idea how much you might have to adjust the temp or cooking time if you were trying to bake this from frozen instead of thawing it first?
Ooh, I’m not exactly sure, but you could try doubling the time? So 1 hour with the cover on, then an additional 10 minutes with the cover off.
Shepards pie or cottage pie as my British husband calls it (Shepards Pie is made with lamb, cottage pie is made with Beef so he says) is yummy with undiluted cream of mushroom soup as gravy.
Oooh, that does sound yummy. And, I did not know that about the Shepherds pie vs. cottage pie! Thanks for enlightening me 🙂