This Turkey Shepherd’s Pie is the ultimate easy dinner. A Healthy Shepherd’s Pie Recipe made with ground turkey and veggies. Easy and yummy!
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This Healthy Shepherd’s Pie is the perfect, healthy light dinner. Learn how to make this, shepherd’s pie with ground turkey in under an hour for a hearty meal!
Shepard’s Pie is such a classic comfort food! Something about warm mashed potatoes, veggies, and beef baked with a creamy golden topping is unmatched.
We love taking classic comforting dinners and making them a little lighter, healthy, and hearty simply by switching up a few ingredients and loading up on the veggies, like in our Zucchini Lasagna and Healthy Chicken Pot Pie.
Make no mistake, you would never know this is healthy, it even has a golden, creamy topping just like the traditional recipe!
Why We Love Healthy Shepherd’s Pie with Ground Turkey
There is so much to love about this classic pie. we love it for so many reasons:
- Hearty & Nutritious – This healthy shepherd’s pie is packed with veggies adding so much nutrition, and making this pie so filling
- Tastes like the ‘real’ thing – You won’t be able to tell that this shepherd’s pie is healthy because it’s so creamy and flavorful!
- Perfect cold weather food – There’s nothing better than cozying up with a big plate of warm comforting food on a cold day!
Turkey Shepherd’s Pie Recipe Ingredients
To make this recipe you’ll need:
- russet potatoes, peeled and chopped
- cauliflower florets
- parmesan cheese
- olive oil
- ground turkey
- onion, garlic, carrots
- dried spices
- chicken broth
- tomato paste
- frozen peas & frozen corn
You can find substitutions for all of these ingredients below in the green shaded box.
How to make Shepherd’s Pie with Ground Turkey
- Boil potatoes and cauliflower florets for 10 minutes, until soft.
- While the potatoes/cauliflower cook, heat olive oil in a pan. Brown ground turkey for 5 minutes. Add onions, garlic, and carrots. Cook for an additional 5 minutes until the turkey is cooked through.
- Add salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, chicken broth, tomato paste, and frozen peas and corn. Stir until combined.
- Drain cooked potatoes & cauliflower.
- In a large mixing bowl, mash the potatoes, cauliflower, olive oil, garlic powder, pepper, and parmesan cheese.
- In a greased dish, layer the ground turkey/veggie filling. Top with mashed potatoes/cauliflower filling.
- Bake at 350° for 30 minutes until the topping is golden brown.
Substitutions for Shepherd’s Pie Recipe with Ground Turkey
Olive Oil: You can substitute avocado oil, melted butter, or ghee.
Vegetables: Feel free to add more veggies to this recipe. If they are frozen, just make sure they are defrosted and drained. Green beans would be a great addition.
Ground Turkey: Feel free to use ground beef or ground chicken. You can also use leftover turkey breast for the turkey meat filling! It’s great for Thanksgiving leftovers.
Broth: Any broth or stock (broth and stock are the same) can be used. Beef Broth, Chicken Broth, or vegetable broth all work interchangeably. I always use low or no salt broth.
Potatoes: Any potato will work in this recipe, just make sure they are peeled and chopped. We like yukon gold or russet best. You can also use leftover mashed potatoes as the topping!
Cauliflower: We use cauliflower to lighten up this recipe. If you are not a cauliflower lover, feel free to use more potatoes instead. Or, to lighten it up, even more, swap out the potatoes for even more cauliflower!
Parmesan Cheese: Parmesan cheese is optional, but highly recommended. It adds a ton of flavor to the recipe.
Spices: You can use any combo of spices in this recipe. Feel free to omit garlic/onion, or salt & pepper to your taste. You can also use 1 tablespoon of your favorite spice blend.
What can I use instead of tomato? Tomato really helps to add flavor to the pie. You can skip it if you don’t have it, but it won’t be as delicious!
Serving Suggestions for Turkey Shepherd’s Pie
This comforting shepherd’s pie with turkey is so good on its own. We also love having it with a warm bowl of soup. Our favorites are Crockpot Potato Soup, Chicken and Vegetable Soup, and Beef Barley Soup!
How to store Ground Turkey Shepherd’s Pie
Storing: You can store this pie in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Freezing: This recipe will last in the freezer for up to 2 months once cooked and cooled. No need to defrost, simply bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour and enjoy!
Reheating: You can reheat this recipe in the microwave, toaster oven, oven, or on the stove. We recommend covering it with aluminum foil if reheating it in the oven.
Ground Turkey Shepherd’s Pie Recipe FAQs
They are very similar. Traditionally a Cottage Pie is made with ground beef and Shepherd’s Pie is made with ground lamb.
Make sure to cook until the topping is golden brown, but sometimes shepherd’s pie will fall apart some. It’s still delicious!
This recipe is 256 calories per 1 cup serving.
Other healthy delicious dinner recipes:
Looking for other easy meals? Check out these 40+ Healthy Dinner Recipes. Click here to grab our free healthy 30-minute dinner cookbook.
Turkey Shepherd’s Pie
Ingredients
Topping:
- 1.5 cups russet potatoes peeled and chopped
- 1.5 cups cauliflower florets
- ½ cup parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup chicken broth low or no salt
Filling:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1 cup diced onion
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic about 2 garlic cloves
- ½ cup carrots diced
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 cup chicken stock low or no salt
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1 cup frozen corn
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees & prepare a grease 8×8 baking dish.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil on the stove. Add potatoes and cauliflower florets. Boil for 10 minutes, until soft.
- While the potatoes/cauliflower cook, heat olive oil in a pan. Brown ground turkey for 5 minutes. Add onions, garlic, and carrots. Cook for an additional 5 minutes until turkey is cooked through.
- Add salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, chicken broth, tomato paste and frozen veggies to the turkey mixture. Stir until combined.
- Drain cooked potatoes & cauliflower.
- In a large mixing bowl mash the potatoes, cauliflower, olive oil, garlic powder, pepper, salt, chicken broth and parmesan cheese.
- In a 8×8 baking dish (9×13 will also work) layer the ground turkey/veggie filing. Top with cauliflower/potato filling.
- Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until the topping is golden brown.
Sharon says
This was really delicious. Easy to make
and very tasty. Will be making again!
Stephanie Millican says
This is a fantastic recipe. My dad is limited to what he can eat right now so I thought I would give this a try. He LOVED it. So much flavor. Will be making it often!!!
Jen K says
Hi, I’m assuming the broth goes in the filling, but it’s listed as an ingredient in the topping – can you clarify? Thanks!
Jen
The Clean Eating Couple says
There is broth in the topping and in the filling. You can see in steps 4 & 6. Hope this helps!
Kristen says
I loved this recipe! I didn’t have cauliflower so I used broccoli instead! It came out great next time I will make it with the cauliflower. Thank you
Aaron says
It was very good!!
Karley says
This was very delicious but the issue was that the mashed potatoes didn’t brown on 350 degree temperature. I had to put it back in for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Other than that, very tasteful.
Jessica I. says
I made this tonight for my family and it was a HUGE hit! I added some fresh, chopped spinach and a medley of veggies to the meat mixture just to give my kids more veggies. I chopped them up so they didn’t even notice them. For the topping, I substituted butter for the oil and milk for the chicken broth. I also added a sweet potato to the mix, just to use it up. Everything came together wonderfully!
Kristen says
This was very tasty. I’m glad to find another good ground turkey recipe to use. The addition of cauliflower to the potato topping is a great light idea for Shepherd’s Pie.
In the filling, I switched the amounts for salt and pepper. I used 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper and this was a good mix for our family. I don’t keep rosemary, so I substituted sage (heaping 1/4 tsp dry). 1 Tbsp tomato paste was so little to mix into that amount of meat/veggies, so I doubled that. As another review mentioned, the potatoes didn’t turn golden at that temperature, but after leaving an extra 5 minutes in the oven, it didn’t seem to matter as far as taste. Thank you!