Recipe updated to make this recipe Slimming World friendly – is can be totally Free on SW or less than 1 Syn a serving if you use milk in the mash! 

Like my lasagne recipe, this is a meal  I have cooked pretty much my whole life and it has a very special place in my heart. Cottage Pie is a homely, comforting dish made of minced beef topped with buttery mashed potatoes. It’s British comfort food at it’s finest.

Back in the day, leftover roast beef would have been ground up and minced to be recycled into a pie the day after a Sunday roast but I think more families make it afresh with minced beef, a much more affordable beef cut. Since I’ve become a pressure cooker nutter these days, it was only a matter of time before I adapted my recipe into this Instant Pot Cottage Pie, with the mince and potatoes cooked together, at the same time!

I recently bought myself a handy-dandy tall trivet, purely for the purpose of making this dish (there will be plenty of other uses coming your way, fear not!):

It’s such a simple piece of kit – the idea being that you can cook the mince in the bottom of the inner pot, pop this trivet in it then cook your potatoes on top so both cook at the same time! It’s much taller than the one which comes with the IP so you have space for both components of the meal. Super handy!

[clickToTweet tweet=”Cook your mince and potatoes at the same time in the Instant Pot for this delicious Cottage Pie!” quote=”Cook your mince and potatoes at the same time in the Instant Pot for this delicious Cottage Pie!”]

As the Inner Pot is quite full and the potatoes are cooked above the mince further away from the hot plate in the base, they actually take the full 12 minutes to cook. If you were cooking them on their own, like in my Instant Pot Sausage & Mash, they only take 4 minutes but actually, it’s pretty handy having both elements cooked in exactly the same amount of time and in the same pot!

I cook my beef mince with some small diced onion, carrots, celery and a few mushrooms – if you had a leek, you could use that instead of or as well as the onion and celery. Sometimes I use fresh thyme, others I use rosemary. It wouldn’t be a cottage pie without a few peas stirred in at the end of cooking too.

I always include a splash Worcestershire sauce (which is resolutely referred to as Henderson’s Relish here in Sheffield where they make their own version of Worcestershire sauce) and I simply have to sprinkle a little extra on top of the mash before I grill it to get the top good and crispy.

This isn’t the fastest recipe you can make in the IP and you do need to turn the grill (broiler) on to crisp the top but it really is worth it. If I were making this on the stovetop, I’d take me up to a couple of hours to put the whole dish together and much of that time is stood at the hob, attending to the various components.

Here, you can walk away whilst it cooks and grills, with no more than 20 mins of your time for chopping, mashing and assembly in total. If that doesn’t make this Instant Pot Cottage Pie the best sort of comfort food you can get, I don’t know what will 🙂

Yield: 4 generous servings

Instant Pot Cottage Pie

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A homely, traditional British dish which is a perfect one pot meal especially on cold days. Plus it's so easy as you make the mince and the mash at the same time - and in just 12 minutes of cooking time!

You'll need a long-legged trivet as well as the one which comes with the Instant Pot for this recipe.

Ingredients

• For the mince:
• Fry Light olive oil spray
• 1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 rib of celery, finely chopped
• 100-150 g button or chestnut mushrooms
• 1 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 2 tsp fresh rosemary or thyme, finely chopped
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 500 g lean beef mince (5% fat or less)
• 1 beef stock cube or 200ml beef stock
• 100-150 g frozen garden peas
• For the mash:
• 800 g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into 1.5 inch cubes
• 120 ml skimmed milk (3 Syns)
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

1. Set the Instant Pot to Sauté and spray with the oil. Add in the onion, carrot, and celery and cook for couple of minutes to soften before adding the mushrooms. Cook another couple of minutes before adding the garlic, rosemary, Worcestershire sauce, tomato purée and beef mince. 
2. Cook until there is no obvious pink mince remaining. If using a beef stock cube, dissolve it first into 200ml boiling water before adding to the mince and stirring well. 
3. Tuck the tall trivet into the mince then place the one which comes with the IP on top (with it's arms folded over the potatoes to make retrieval easier later). Sit the potatoes on top - see photos in the post. 
4. Put the lid on, cancel Sauté mode then press Manual and set to 12 minutes. Leave to cook and you can do either a QPR or NPR here, it doesn't matter in this recipe. Taste the mince to see if it needs more salt. You can preheat the grill (broiler) ready for browning the top. 
5. Measure the milk into bowl with some sea salt and black pepper then pass the potatoes through a ricer into the milk. Or just use a masher if that's all you have (I love my Oxo ricer - link in post). 
6. Stir the peas into the mince then scoop it into an oven proof dish. One about 8-9 inches round or square is just right. Scoop the mash on top and use a fork to fluff it up before sprinkling with a little Worcestershire sauce. Grill for 15 minutes or until crispy and golden brown on top. Dig in and eat! 

Notes

For Slimming World readers:

• 120ml skimmed milk = 3 Syns therefore per serving, this Cottage Pie is less than 1 Syn per person! Or, take it from your daily HEA allowance milk (2 tbsp/30ml per person) and this is FREE!
• This blog is in no way affiliated with or sponsored by Slimming World.
• It is always recommended that you check the Syn Calculator yourself to ensure your particular ingredients are suitable and all Syns accounted for.

Recommended Products

As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.

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