Is there anything more comforting than Turkey Shepherd’s Pie? This healthier spin on a classic is made with ground turkey and veggies that are simmered in a sumptuous gravy and topped with creamy mashed potatoes.
Wondering what to do with that pound of ground turkey? If you have frozen veggies and potatoes at home too you have all the key ingredients for this recipe!
Shepherd’s pie is a classic. Its one of those hearty, cozy meals that warms you up for your head to your toes. Its a classic comfort food and one beloved by many.
We love shepherd’s pie in our house. I love everything that involves mashed potatoes, if I am being honest. Its one of my ultimate comfort foods, right up there with pasta!
This turkey shepherd’s pie is a healthier twist on a classic. Not only is it leaner due to the use of ground turkey, but its also an easy recipe that makes multiple servings.
As there are only 2 of us in this home, we have plenty of leftovers from this dish and that is something we are happy about. Its so deliciously cozy we are more than eager to eat it repeatedly!
If you don’t have ground turkey on hand, you can easily substitute regular ground beef as well. No hate for ground beef over here as we make it with it as well. We will take shepherd’s pie any which way we can!
This recipe doesn’t take too long to make, especially if you have mashed potatoes leftover from a previous dinner. If you don’t though, no sweat. It takes about 15 minutes to boil the potatoes and between that and baking the shepherd’s pie, you can have dinner on the table in an hour. No sweat!
I should also point out that you can easily add in fresh veggies in place of the frozen ones. I use frozen because that is something we almost always have on hand and it just makes life easier. Less chopping and quicker cooking. That means a quicker dinner. But feel free to use fresh. You may have to adjust the cooking time and add the veggies in earlier (when you are cooking the turkey) to ensure they have enough time to soften.
Bon appetit!
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Turkey Shepherd’s Pie
Ingredients
For the Mashed Potato Topping:
- 2 lbs potatoes yellow or russet, peeled and cut into small pieces
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1/3 cup milk
- salt and pepper to taste
For the Filling:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1/2 onion diced
- 2 tablespoons flour (sub gf flour for a gf dish)
- 3/4 cup tomato sauce
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 teaspoon dry thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon paprika
- 1 1/2 cups frozen vegetable mix (peas, corn, carrots)
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place the peeled and chopped potatoes in a large pot and fill with water (2 inches above the potatoes). Bring the pot to a boil and then lower heat to medium and cook until potatoes are fork tender, about 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a skillet and add the ground turkey. Season with salt and pepper and cook for approx. 4 minutes, breaking up the larger pieces to ensure even cooking. Add the onion and continue to cook until onion is tender and the turkey is cooked through.
- Sprinkle turkey with flour and stir to coat. Add the tomato sauce, chicken broth, thyme, paprika and frozen vegetables and cook until the liquid is reduced to a thick gravy. Season with salt and pepper as needed. Spoon into the bottom of your baking dish (11×11 dish, 8×13 dish or similar). Let cool.
- Preheat oven to 400F. Once potatoes are cooked, add them to a large bowl with the butter. Once butter melts, add the milk and mash until smooth. Add more milk if needed. Once filling has cooled, spoon the mashed potatoes over the filling. Then , using the back of a spoon or spatula, spread the potatoes over the filling evenly. Bake for 25 minutes.
Note: Metric ingredient measurements are provided as a courtesy using a third-party calculator and are rounded to the nearest unit. The recipes provided on this site have not been tested with metric measurements and their accuracy cannot be verified.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided is based on third-party calculations and is an estimate only. Accurate nutritional facts will vary based on the particular brands used, portion sizes, measurement accuracy and more.
I made this tonight, and we all agreed we like it better than the recipe I’ve using for a couple of years. It was written for using lamb, and I always use ground turkey, and the seasonings were never quite right. This one is. Thank you!
I’m so happy to hear your family enjoyed it! 🙂