Hi Everyone and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Before I get into why you’re really reading this post I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Nicole, and I have been vegan for just 1 year, but I dove in head first and its been the best year of my life! I got healthy, got happy, and learned that anything non-vegans can eat I can eat also and I can make it taste the same and usually better! I'm looking forward to telling you more about my story through my recipe posts and a future "Why I'm Vegan" post so until then here's a fun recipe to start you off!
Even though I may not have any Irish heritage in my lineage I do love to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and I do appreciate all of you awesome Irish people out there for allowing us non-Irish to do so! When I think of St. Patrick’s Day, I first think of too many Jameson shots, Guinness pints, and green beer, but what I also think about is the togetherness, happiness and enjoying a fun day with friends and family, and that is what I love so much about the day. You get to share pure joy and happiness with the people you love while celebrating a damn cool heritage!
So, for this holiday, I decided to recreate the traditional Shepherd's Pie! I've always loved this dish for its full flavor and the immediate comfort it gives you, like a big warm hug from your grandma, as your eating it. So once I went vegan, I realized I needed to find a way to keep this dish in my life so obviously I had to recreate it. I took all the techniques that I already knew, like adding a little cinnamon into any “meat” mixture and you'll immediately believe in heaven or a clove of garlic boiled then mashed with potatoes is pure bliss, and added them all into this dish to create a creamy, smooth, delicious main dish! I hope you enjoy making and eating this as much as I did, and to everyone Irish and all who aren't have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day filled with warmth, togetherness, and maybe a few slurred words!
Vegan Guinness Shepherd’s Pie
Servings: Approximately 6
Prep Time: Approximately 35 Minutes
Cook Time: 30 Minutes
Mashed Potato Topping Ingredients:
- 3 Large Russet Potatoes, peeled and diced
- 3-4 Cups Vegetable Stock, or enough to cover the potatoes in the pot
- 1 Medium Clove Garlic
- 8 Tbsp. Vegan butter
- 2/3 Cup Vegan milk, I use original unsweetened almond or oat
- 2 Tsp. Olive oil
- 2 Tbsp. Nutritional yeast
- Salt and Pepper to Taste
Stew Filling Ingredients:
- 1 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil
- 1 Medium Yellow onion, diced
- 1 (8 Oz Package) Baby Bella mushrooms, Finely Diced
- 1 Block of Extra Firm Tofu, Pat Dry and Crumbled
- ½ Tsp. Cinnamon
- 1 ½ Tsp. Garlic powder
- 1 Tsp. Onion powder
- 2 Tbsp. All-Purpose Flour
- 1 Tbsp. of Tomato paste
- 1 Cup of Guinness
- ½ Cup of Frozen Corn
- 1 Cup of Frozen Peas & Carrots, Mixed Bag
- 1 Tbsp. Parsley
- ½ Tbsp. Thyme
- Salt and Pepper to Taste
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 400 Degrees Fahrenheit
- Add the potatoes and garlic clove to a pot and cover them with vegetable stock
- Turn on the heat to medium high and allow the vegetable stock to come to a boil.
- Once the potatoes are fork tender drain them and add the potatoes and garlic clove back into the pot
- Add the vegan butter, vegan milk, olive oil, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper to the pot and mash the potatoes until smooth.
- While the potatoes are cooking, in a sauté pan over medium heat add the vegetable oil and onion and sauté until the onion is translucent, approximately 3-5 minutes
- While the onions are cooking, mix the mushrooms, tofu, cinnamon, garlic powder and onion powder in a mixing bowl
- After the onions have cooked add in the tofu and mushroom mixture and cook for approximately 15 minutes
- After the tofu and mushroom mixture has cooked, and gotten slightly crispy at parts, add in the tomato paste and sprinkle over the flour and mix that together until you see no clump of tomato or flour
- Cook for about 2 minutes to allow the flour to thicken and then add in the Guinness and mix
- Lower the heat to low and add in the frozen, carrots, peas, and corn mix together and let that cook for 1-2 minutes until the vegetables have cooked and thawed.
- Once the stew mixture is finished assemble the shepherds pie by adding the stew mixture to the bottom of an oven safe dish, I use a 1.75 liter oval dish but an 8x8 dish will work as well, then add the potatoes on top
- Cook the pie for 30 minutes in the oven, once the top of the potatoes are a golden brown, remove the pie and let cool and set for approximately 10 minutes then serve and enjoy!
Notes:
- If you don’t have tofu or don’t want to use it, you can always use any other kind of “meat” crumbles like Beyond Meat, Impossible, Etc.
- In my opinion, the mushrooms are a great addition to the meat mixture as it adds a ton of meaty texture and earthiness to the dish, but if you don’t like mushrooms you can always leave them out and just add another half block of tofu
- I personally love cooking my potatoes in stock or a mixture of stock and vegan milk because it adds so much flavor into the potatoes, but you can use just salted water if you don’t have any stock on hand
- As you will notice with my recipes, I always add cinnamon to any kind of meat mixture, I promise you it brings that mixture to a whole new level. The same with boiling a garlic clove with your potatoes to then mash it in with them. It is something that changes the game!