Recipe: Healthy Cottage Pie Two Ways

Cottage pie is the ultimate comfort food, but the usual recipe using white potato can make it pretty heavy on calories. Instead, you can swap the buttery mashed potato for either carrot and sweet potato or celeriac and leek. Both combinations are really delicious, but the sweet potato option is my personal favourite as I LOVE sweet potato. 

The following ingredients will make four servings (we usually cook this for the two of us and freeze half the portion to use another time, it comes in handy on a night when you can’t be bothered to cook!)

For the cottage pie:

250g minced beef (extra lean)

2 red peppers, diced

1 large onion, diced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

2 celery stalks, finely chopped

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

2 tbsps tomato purée

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 bay leaf

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped

Salt and pepper to season

300ml boiling water

2 oxo cubes

Celeriac and leek topping:

2 young leeks, trimmed and sliced           

500g celeriac, peeled and cubed

100g half-fat crème fraiche

Carrot and sweet potato topping:

300g carrots, peeled and chopped

300g sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed

100g half-fat crème fraiche

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200C (400F), heat some oil in a large pan (or use oil spray to keep the calories down), brown the minced beef and set it aside. Pop the onion, pepper, celery and carrots in the pan and allow them to soften for 10 minutes. 

Then add the meat and stir in chopped tomatoes, tomato purée, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf and chopped thyme leaves, as well as some salt and pepper to season, water and oxo cubes. Bring it to the boil, then cover and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

For the celeriac and leek topping, boil celeriac until tender, drain and mash it with crème fraiche until smooth. Heat oil in a pan and sauté the leeks, then add them to the celeriac mash and season.

For the carrot and sweet potato topping, put the carrots, sweet potato and garlic in a large pan of salted water, bring to the boil and cook for 12 minutes. Add the crème fraiche, mash until smooth and season.

Pour the beef into a shallow ovenproof dish and top with your mixture of choice. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Enjoy! x