Shepherd’s Pie Soup
A soup spin on shepherd’s pie, with lamb, veggies, and broth in the bowl, topped with bread, cheese, and creamy mashed potatoes! I just love a soup with a topper on it. There is something so nice about cracking into the top layer and finding warm delicious soup underneath!
The inspiration for this soup
I originally posted this recipe in 2012 but I had to revisit it this year! Before, the potatoes were all mixed into the soup, but I really wanted to update it in a fun new way. I decided to take a page from French onion soup and create a potato topper. Having tried this in the past, I was a little concerned about the potatoes actually floating. The answer was right there in the inspiration – put bread under the potatoes to help them float!
Make the potatoes first
Boil the potatoes and then mash them with sour cream, butter, and cheese. This will make an excellent topper for our shepherd’s pie soup!
Then start the soup
Lamb in first, but you can use beef if you prefer. Then onion, celery, carrot, and garlic.
After the beef has browned and the veggies are softened. add the liquids. Vinegar and Worcestershire, then broth.
Finish the Shepherd’s pie soup with peas and corn, molasses, thyme, and a little potato flakes to thicken it slightly.
Prepare the Shepherd’s Pie Soup for the oven
Add the shepherd’s pie soup to an oven safe bowl and top with bread, cheese, and then the potatoes. Bake to brown!
Serving the Shepherd’s Pie Soup
Look how good that looks! So tasty. I love when you see the food and you know there is a surprise inside.
Make sure you serve the bowl of shepherd’s pie soup on top of a heatproof plate because some of the soup and potatoes will fall off the edges and you done want to lose them!
This is the moment we worked so hard for! breaking into the potato topping to find that steaming hot delicious soup!
Twists and tips for shepherd’s pie soup
Like I said, I don’t really care if you use beef or lamb. I don’t even care if you use ground turkey or chicken. Do what you want. If you have never made a classic British style shepherds pie, this is a great recipe for it.
For more fun Shepherd’s pie ideas, check out my shepherds pie burgers, nachos, or this shepherds pie deep dish pizza!
Shepherds Pie Soup
Ingredients
Potatoes
- 3 russet potatoes peeled and chopped into 2 inch pieces
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
- salt and pepper
Soup
- 1 pound ground lamb I won't be mad if you use beef though
- 1 small onion diced
- 3 carrots diced
- 3 ribs celery diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 4 cups beef broth
- 1/2 cup frozen peas
- 3/4 cup frozen corn
- 2 tablespoons molasses
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2 tablespoons dehydrated potato flakes
Finish
- 4 slices sourdough bread
- 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
Instructions
Potatoes
- Add the potatoes to a pot of water and bring to a simmer. Cook about 35 minutes until tender enough to easily slide a fork into. Strain
- Add the butter, sour cream, and cheese to the potatoes in a large bowl. Mash and stir until smooth. Set aside.
Soup
- In a large heavy bottom frying pan set to high heat, add some oil and then add in the lamb. Cook about 8 minutes to brown on the edges, breaking up the meat as it cooks.
- Add in the onion, carrot, and celery and continue to cook about 10 more minutes, stirring often.
- Stir in the garlic and cook 2 more minutes. Add in the vinegar and Worcestershire and stir, scraping the bottom of the pan to incorporate any of the browned bits of meat stuck to the pan. Stir in the broth.
- Add in the frozen peas and carrots, molasses, and thyme. Stir and let simmer for 15 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 400
- Stir the potato flakes into the soup and remove from heat.
- Transfer the soup to oven safe individual serving bowls.
- Add the potatoes to a piping bag. Top the soups with a slice of bread that hangs over the edges just enough to not sink in. Add the cheese to each bread, then pipe the potatoes on top.
- Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes to brown on top. If it's not browning after 10, broil it to finish.
- Serve!
This looks so amazing! Yum Yum. Want to make this soon- I love shepards pie and have never thought of making it into a soup! I love your creative thinking! Keep it up!
Do you drain the potatoes before blending or blend with water?
You Blend Them Together With The Stock That You Cooked Them In.
“5 lb bag of potatoes, minus one large potato”
What do you do with that extra potato?
Perfect! I have chicken stock that needs to be used this month and here’s a great recipe to do just that. Thank you!
FYI technically this is a cottage pie soup (given it’s beef mince), it would be shepherd’s pie soup if it were made with lamb mince.
/nitpicking
Everything about this bowl of soup screams comfort!
looks good! kudos from France ;0)
You know…this is awesome!
Making it tonight, I was lazy and left the potatoe peels on after a thorough scrubbing. I then added a bit of heavy cream to make it a bit thicker because I didn’t have quite enough potatoe. I also opted for beef stock. Very good stuff. Will make again.
Dear America,
Stop making shepherds pie with beef. Shepherds pie is made with LAMB, hence the name, shepherd. It can be made with a mix of lamb and beef, but not really. A pie made with beef should have a pie crust top, and is a COTTAGE pie. ‘Cos the pastry is like the roof on a cottage. Or something.
Love England.
Just for cooking newbies out there:
Cook the carrot with a bit of oil before you cook it with onion, the carrots take longer to cook than the onion.
ADD GARLIC! (when you add the onion) Garlic is awesome, dont go without!
Make sure you taste as you go, this did’nt have any salt or pepper added so you will need to adjust for your own tastes, I salt/peppered the meat when it cooked and then added a bit more salt/pepper as the soup cooked. (yes the stock has sodium in it, but its not enough, this is very bland without salt)
And to Kate from England, next time make your podium taller, no one here gives a crap if the NAME of the dish is off…we cant help it if most of you were serfs, peasants, indentured servants who didn’t have access to beef (or anything decent) when shepherds pie was invented…
Honestly if anyone has ever eaten in England they know the truth, the food sucks 😛
Love,
USA
P.S. America encompasses more than just the US, people from South America take great offense to being lumped in with us Yanks.
OK, I don’t know what I’ll call it, but I am going to do this with leftover Thanksgiving turkey (obviously I am not English) instead of beef. We’ll have to call it Gobbler Pie Soup or something like that.
What a great idea! All the flavors in a soup. Need to try this soon.
Not to continue the meat argument, but the Oxford English Dictionary defines shepherds pie as ‘a dish of minced meat under a layer of mashed potato’. If you Google the term, you will find that cottage pie is a more recent term and the stories of the origin of the meaning could just be folklore.
Is there a way to cook this if you don’t have a stick processor?
I used a regular processor and put the mixture back in the pan when it came to the right consistency. And to “English food sucks” Ever have an original fish and chip in Bathe, England. If not do not say it sucks until you can indulge in that.
Just finished making this soup. IT’S GREAT!
Super tasty and pretty healthy too.
I am English…my Mum used to make “Shepherds Pie” once a week. It always had mince meat in it. Maybe cuz we couldn’t afford lamb…who cares? It’s fabulous and that’s all that matters. BTW…”English Food Sucks”… I don’t know where you ate when/if you were there but I’ve had some majorly memorable meals there! Try again 🙂
Toss in the frozen onion?? Was that supposed to be corn? Or is there actually a need for frozen onion? (I’m going to the store tomorrow to get the ingredients!!)
should be corn not onion
I stumbled upon this recipe today and just had to make it. I always try the recipe as is then change the second time I make it. I absolutely loved this. I can’t wait to make this again!
Excellent soup!
I ended up with a ton left over. Has anyone tried freezing it?
Hoping it’ll defrost with minimal flavor loss/damage…
I’m so glad I found this! I did kind of over load on the veggies, but still came out tasting amazing.