I’m all about comfort food, and shepherd’s pie gets me. It just does. It’s one of my food soul mates really. I fell in love with it at a young age when my mom introduced it to me. Since then I’ve been developing my own meatless recipe. I make it with red lentils. They cook so quickly, and 1/4 cup have 13 grams of protein and 20% of your daily iron. So they are awesome, and they are extra awesome in this recipe.





Serves 4-5

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup red lentils

2 Tbsp coconut oil

1/2 large onion, finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, finely minced

2 medium carrots, finely diced

2 stalks of celery, finely diced

3/4 cup of frozen peas

2 tsp dried Italian seasoning

2 Tbsp Vegan Worcestershire sauce

1 cup tomato sauce

2 Tbsp tomato paste

A handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped

1 medium potato, thoroughly washed and cubed

1 head of cauliflower, chopped into florets

3 Tbsp vegan butter

1 tsp garlic powder

2/3 cup of flax milk (or plain unsweetened almond milk)

Salt Pepper to taste.

Instructions:

Add the potato cubes and cauliflower florets to a large pot and fill with water until they’re just covered. Bring to a boil on medium high heat, and cook for 20-30 minutes or until the cubes of potato slide off of a knife easily.

While the potatoes and florets are cooking, you’ll want to cook the lentils. Simply add them to a medium saucepan, fill with water till they’re just covered, and bring to a boil on medium high heat. Cook for 15 minutes then drain.

Heat the coconut oil in a large fry pan. Add the onion and sauté until soft and translucent, about 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes. Add the diced carrots, celery, frozen green peas, and cooked red lentils to the pan and mix together. Add the Italian seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, tomato sauce, tomato paste, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer for 10 minutes while you prepare the mashed potatoes/cauliflower.

Start preheating oven to 4ooF at this time.

Once the potatoes and florets are cooked, drain, then transfer to a mixing bowl. Use a masher and mash until smooth. Add butter, garlic powder, milk, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

To assemble the dish, spoon the lentil veggie mixture in the bottom of a casserole dish (I like using an 8×8 pan, but a 9×13 will work well too. If you want to get fancy you can put them in individual oven proof ramekins) Top with fresh chopped parsley. Spoon the mashed potato/cauliflower on top and mark ridges with a fork. The ridges will crisp up and make it look pretty.

Bake in the oven for around 10-15 minutes. Then stick them under the broiler for another few minutes (4-5) until the mashed potato topping forms a nice golden brown crust.

Garnish with fresh parsley 🙂