In the middle of winter, there’s nothing better than a big bowl of tasty comfort food – and this can be both healthy and delicious! This veggie-packed cottage pie is vegan-friendly, high in plant protein and super-nutritious. It’s also great for meal-planning!
Whether you’re meal-planning for the week or whipping up a big oven dish for the family, this veggie cottage pie ticks all the boxes! Swapping out regular potatoes for orange sweet potatoes ups the dose of beta-carotene – Vitamin A – which aids in immune support.
This recipe uses lentils and peas for plant protein, but you could replace it with 250g minced beef for a meat version or with plant-based mince.
There is an option to top the sweet potato mash with grated cheese or Parmesan at the end, you can leave this off completely or use plant-based cheese as you like. The mash recipe contains nutritional yeast, which will already provide a slight cheesy flavour.
What You Need:
- 1 large brown onion, finely diced
- Olive oil
- 2 large carrots, peels and grated
- 2 celery stalks, finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic, very finely diced
- ½ tsp each: dried thyme, dried rosemary, smoky paprika, coriander powder and cumin
- ½ glass red wine* (optional)
- ½ cup finely chopped brown mushrooms
- ½ cup finely chopped baby marrow (zucchini)
- 1 tin brown lentils, drained
- ½ cup of frozen peas
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup low-sodium vegetable stockTopping:
- 3-4 orange sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 2cm pieces
- ¼ cup oat or soya milk (plant milk of your choice)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- Handful of cheese / plant-based cheese (optional), for topping
Method:
1/ Start by sautéing your onion in a little olive oil in a large pan set over a medium heat. After a couple minutes, add the celery, carrots and garlic and saute until fragrant and just cooked, about 3 minutes. Add your dried herbs and spices and saute for a further minute or 2. if using red wine, add it now to deglaze the pan and bring in flavour.
2/ Add a little more olive oil, as needed and add the mushrooms, baby marrows, lentils and peas to the pan and sauté.
3/ Add in the chopped tomatoes and paste and one cup of stock and simmer, stirring occasionally. Time to preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius!
4/ In the meantime, prepare the potatoes by adding the pieces to a pot of boiling water and cook for around 15 minutes until soft enough to mash. Once cooked, drain and place in a bowl with a little milk and olive oil and mash until lumps are removed. Stir in the nutritional yeast and seasoning to taste.
5/ Once the lentil mixture is cooked, spoon it into a large baking dish. Top with the sweet potato and nutritional yeast mash and spread over evenly. Option to add a handful of cheese of your choice over the top before popping in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.