Shepherd’s Pie Cupcakes

On Wednesday night, I had planned on making up a large batch of meatballs, but once I got the meatball mixture made, I decided that I would place it in cupcake tins instead of preparing the traditional meatballs. They were a huge hit, but even after having them with spaghetti and then a couple as leftovers with just sauce, I still had a few that needed to be used up. Since I wanted to turn them into a meal, I started thinking about different options while I looked at the ingredients in my pantry.

As my eyes fell onto the bag of potatoes, an idea started to form in my mind. Why not make shepherd’s pie? Instead of the traditional baking dish method, I would use the “cupcake” meatballs and build personal shepherd’s pies. Originally, I was just going to serve the mashed potatoes and veggies beside the meat, but I thought it would be more fun to create something that embraced the shape of the “cupcake” meatballs. Needless to say, I ended up with cupcake shepherd’s pie. To complete the look, I added a piece of carrot. I served the “cupcakes” with a side of carrot sticks.

Both Munchkin and Daddy were thrilled with the meal. They both thought it was fun and more importantly – it tasted delicious! D informed me later in the evening that he and another guy at work had just been talking about shepherd’s pie earlier in the day, so he found it rather funny that we ended up having a modified version of it for supper. lol!

I got to thinking that these would be a fun dish to serve on April Fools Day. You’d just need to add a cute cupcake wrapper or silicone cupcake mold to have a dinner cupcake. You could even use cherry tomatoes to look like the cherry on top.

As is my usual style, the ingredients are rough measurements. You’ll want to make adjustments according to taste preferences. This recipe yields 12 cupcakes.

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Shepherd’s Pie Cupcakes

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground turkey (or ground meat of your choice)
• 1/2 cup gluten free oats
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. dried oregano
• 1 Tbsp. dried basil
• 1/4 cup dried diced onions
• salt
• pepper
• 2 eggs
• **Cupcake Ingredients**
• Meat cupcakes
• Mashed Potatoes
• Cooked Carrots
• Veggies

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Dump all ingredients into a medium or large mixing bowl and thoroughly combine. (I just use my hands to get it all mixed together well.)
3. Grease cupcake tins.
4. Evenly divide meat mixture into 12 balls and place in cupcake tin(s).
5. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until internal temperature of meat reaches 165 degrees.
6. Allow to cool slightly in tins.
7. At this point, you can either use the meat cupcakes alone, or you can turn them into the shepherd's pie cupcakes.
8. Place the mashed potatoes into a pastry bag and pipe mashed potatoes onto meat "cupcakes". I chose to do a traditional swirl style, but you could get more creative. If you don't want to pipe it on, you could just do a large ice cream scoop dollop on top. If you don't have pastry/frosting bags, you can use a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off.
9. Top the mashed potatoes with the end of a cooked carrot. You could also decorate with diced veggies sprinkles, if desired.
10. Serve with a side of veggies.

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This is a great recipe for getting the kids to help in the kitchen.

This recipe is featured in the Christian Home Magazine Issue 79.