If you’re in the mood for the delicious taste of Shepard’s pie, but you are counting calories or going low-carb, try this recipe out. There’s a few hacks to keep in mind for those on low fat or low carb diets (see the notes at the bottom of the page.)

Ingredients:

-About 1 pound lean beef (I use 93% lean/7% fat)

-One large onion (chopped)

-One teaspoon minced garlic

-3 tablespoons worcestershire sauce

-1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

– A dash of garlic & herb Mrs Dash seasoning

– A dash of salt and pepper

– 3 tablespoons tomato sauce or salsa

– Frozen Trader Joes mashed potatoes

-Cauliflower rice (I buy the frozen one so I always have it on hand.)

-Frozen vegetable medley

 

Instructions:

1.) Finely chop one large onion.

2.) Sauté chopped onion on medium-high heat until it caramelizes. Add in one teaspoon of minced garlic and deglaze the pan by adding about 2-3 tablespoons water. Return to heat and allow to cook together for 1-2 minutes. 

3.) Add in one package of 93% lean/7% fat ground beef. It should be about 1 pound. Mine was 1.13 pounds. 

Here’s a pic of the one I buy for reference (from Aldi):

4.) Now we can add our seasoning: 3 tablespooons Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning, dash of garlic and herb mrs dash, dash of salt and pepper. 

5.) Add 2-3 tablespoons of a tomato base. I had salsa but you can use tomato sauce, tomato paste or even leftover soup. 

6.) Stir all ingredients together and allow beef to cook until no pinkness remains. Make sure that there is still some sauce leftover with the beef because it goes perfectly on top of the potato layer. 

7.) For the potato layer, I use the frozen Trader Joe’s mashed potatoes. They are very macro friendly and 8 small pellets is one serving which is perfect for this Shepard’s pie bowl.

Here’s a pic for reference:

The microwave instructions are as follows: place mashed potato pellets in a bowl and cover them. Microwave on high for 2-2.5 minutes. Uncover and stir/mash together. Place back into microwave and microwave again for 2 minutes. You can add a little butter and salt and pepper if you’d like but I think they are perfect as is. 

To add more volume to the potato layer without the calories, add cauliflower rice in! Just make sure its mixed in well with the potato. It blends perfectly with the potato and adds no taste. Add however much you’d like. Its all about your preference. 

Here’s a pic of the one I buy for reference:

8.) Traditional Shepard’s pie has veggies such as peas, carrots and corn. I add more variety to this bowl as those corn isn’t very macro friendly and just having an ample amount and variety of veggies makes this dish more appealing. You can buy a package of pre-seasoned veggies and add others in like I did or you can season your veggies yourself.

Here’s a pic of the one I buy for reference:

9.) Assemble the pie as follows: the bottom layer should be the mashed potato, on top of that the beef and then the veggies. If you’d like you can also add another layer of potato on top and add some low fat cheese to broil and caramelize the top. I chose to forgo that as it is more macro friendly this way. 

NOTES:

1.) You can use bagged mashed potato flakes if you’d like, I prefer the frozen ones because they are easier to make. It’s just a matter of microwaving them.

2.) You can also make this recipe with mashed sweet potatoes for a fun twist.

3.) To make this recipe vegetarian, sub out the ground beef with ground tofu. There are some ground tofu products that come pre-seasoned so its even easier on you.

Try it and let me know how you like it!