Healthy Shepherd’s Pie
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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!
This Healthy Shepherd’s Pie is the perfect light dinner. A classic comfort food made lighter..but make no mistake, you would never know this is healthy, it even has a golden, creamy topping just like the traditional recipe!
This turkey Shepherd’s Pie is hearty, tastes just like the ‘real’ thing and is the perfect cold weather dinner!
Liz’s Tips for the Best Turkey Shepherd’s Pie
- Use a food processor to chop your onions and garlic to save time.
- Assemble the night before and bake when it’s time for dinner! If you want to prep this healthy shepherd’s pie ahead of time, you can store it in the fridge overnight and bake when you’re ready to eat!
- Get creative with your ingredients. You can use ground turkey, ground chicken or ground beef – there are tons of options for customizing this recipe.
- Make sure to create an even layer of meat/veggies and topping.
Ingredients
Substitutions
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. If you’d prefer to use fresh herbs, substitute with 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary and fresh thyme.
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!
Low Carb: You can use more cauliflower than potatoes or try this Low-Carb Shepherd’s Pie
How to make Shepherd’s Pie with Ground Turkey
- Brown ground turkey, onions, garlic and veggies. Add spices, chicken broth, tomato paste, and frozen peas and corn. Stir until combined.
2. Boil potatoes and cauliflower florets for 10 minutes, until soft. Drain. Mash the potatoes, cauliflower, olive oil, garlic powder, black pepper, and parmesan cheese.
3. In a greased casserole dish, layer the ground turkey/veggie filling.
4. Top with mashed potatoes/cauliflower filling. You can use a rubber spatula to smooth out the mashed topping or get fancy by piping it with a piping bag or ziploc bag.
5. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes until the topping is golden brown.
storage options
Storing: You can store leftover turkey shepherd’s pie in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Freezing: This recipe will last in the freezer for up to 3 months once cooked and cooled. We recommend freezing in a foil container, or freeze in individual servings in our favorite containers for freezing.
Reheating from frozen: If reheating from frozen, there’s no need to defrost, simply bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour and enjoy! You can thaw overnight in the fridge if you’d prefer.
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.
Other healthy 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.
Healthy Shepherd’s Pie
Ingredients
Topping:
- 1 ½ cups russet potatoes peeled and chopped
- 1 ½ cups cauliflower florets
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon black 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 diced carrots
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ cup low sodium chicken stock
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 cup peas
- 1 cup corn
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees & prepare a greased 8×8 (9×13 will also work) casserole 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. You can use a stand mixer or hand mixer to bring these ingredients together.
- In a 8×8 casserole dish (9×13 will also work) layer the ground turkey/veggie filing. Top with cauliflower/potato filling and use a spatula to smooth out.
- Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until the topping is golden brown, serve and enjoy!
I forgot the peas, but this was so delicious! I’m adding it to my normal repertoire!
Excellent will make again. I didnt have turkey so used ground chicken.
This was my first time making Shepard’s Pie. I added sweet potatoes instead of cauliflower for the topping and loved it!
Great Shepherd’s Pie recipe! I make this on the regular as it is very easy and very tasty.
This tastes just like a regular Shepherd’s pie but it’s nice to have a healthier version. It is hearty and filling and is definitely a comfort food. We will definitely try it again soon.
We absolutely love this recipe. We made a huge batch of it while I was pregnant and froze 2 casseroles for postpartum! It was just as good from the freezer as it was fresh.
Excellent and very way to do. I’ve made it several times and it keeps getting better. I’ve added coriander, cumin and some leeks (because I had them.
So glad you liked it, Norman!
Could you use all cauliflower and no potatoes (on low carb diet)? If so would anything else need to be adjusted?
I haven’t tried that Michele, so I can’t be sure! sorry!
Perfectly delicious! I added extra potatoes
So glad you liked it!
Mixing in cauliflower with the potatoes is a great idea!
This recipe tastes amazing- give it a try
I made this last night for the first time. It was delicious! I’ve added it to my “favorites” list and I can’t wait to eat it again.
This is amazing! I was thrilled to find a shepherds pie recipe that still has the potato topping, but I love how this one uses half potatoes and half cauliflower to lighten it up. The amount of Parmesan cheese is perfect. I’ll be making this again in the future.
Omg this was so good! I made it exactly as described and it turned out amazing! Flavorful and healthy!
Very tasty! I used LO Turkey from thanksgiving and cut it into chunks and threw it in with sautéed vegs in the end.
Thank you for ALL your wonderful recipes!
Susie
This was delicious and definitely being added into my recipe rotation! I made it in a 9×13 dish and ended up having to double the cauliflower/potato topping to cover but that was no biggie! I also doubled the tomato paste as well.
I made this tonight and followed the recipe as much as I could. I didn’t have rosemary and I put a little worchestire sauce in the turkey mixture. My husband absolutely loved it!!! It was super yummy and I felt good eating it. It wasn’t super heavy. Will definitely make this again!
I have never been disappointed by any of your recipes, but this one might be my favorite. The topping was just so good! 10/10 everyone loved it. My only regret is that I only doubled the recipe. Next time I’ll at least triple it!
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!
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!
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.
It was very good!!
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
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
There is broth in the topping and in the filling. You can see in steps 4 & 6. Hope this helps!
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!!!
This was really delicious. Easy to make
and very tasty. Will be making again!