Easy Upside-Down Shepherd’s Pie

Need a quick and easy, but hearty dinner tonight? Easy Upside-down shepherd’s pie covers all your bases! 

It’s funny how anything that was a staple at family mealtime during your growing up years becomes what you think of as “comfort food”. At first, I thought that homemade egg noodles were my comfort food, and I felt like I was betraying them anytime I called something else a comfort food, but eventually, I accepted the fact that there can be more than one comfort food. 

Shepherd’s pie is one of those comfort foods. There’s just something so spot on about the combination of potatoes and meat, with a a simple gravy and some sweet veggies mixed in. 

I remember frequently peeling what seemed like a ton of potatoes, and was actually “only” eight pounds to make a shepherd’s pie dinner for our family of ten (there is no limit to how many potatoes hungry teenage boys will eat!). After a while, you get pretty efficient at peeling potatoes, but let’s be honest, sometimes, ya just ain’t got time for that. 

That’s why I partnered with Hungry Jack to make a super easy version of shepherd’s pie with so little prep time, it’ll make you squeal with joy, using their dried hash browns. 

If you’re like me, you’ve always kind of thought of hash browns as a breakfast food. But hey, they’re potatoes, and potatoes are for every meal, no? Using hash browns for dinner just makes things so simple! And their new Black pepper and onion flavor is purrrfect for dinner dishes!

I have a thing for dehydrating as a means to food preservation, because storing dried food is so low maintenance. Mom and I use to even experiment with dehydrating potatoes, but we never did much because like I said, our family of ten went through potatoes pretty fast, so we were never able to grow enough to preserve many. 

That said, now our family is a lot smaller (for now!), and I’m excited about the possibilities that gives me, and now that I’ve tried these Hungry Jack hash browns, I’m excited to once again try my hand at potato dehydrating, because man, the instant meal possibilities are almost endless!

BTW, Get a $1 off two Hungry Jack potato products by clicking here.

Visit the Hungry Jack Website here for lots of just recipes and ideas

Never heard of hungry Jack hash browns? Use the store locator here to find them at a store near you. (I’m pretty sure Walmart carried them, so they’re pretty widespread)

And don’t forget to enter the Hungry Jack Sweepstakes between May 9 and June 19 for a chance to win a trip to a NASCAR Race by clicking here.

Easy Upside-Down Shepherd’s Pie

Easy Upside-Down Shepherd’s Pie

• Author: Elise

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 2 cartons Black Pepper and Onion Hash browns
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• 1 large carrot
• 1/2 cup frozen or fresh peas
• 2 T. Cornstarch
• 2 cups water
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350º
2. Rehydrate Hash browns according to carton Instructions.
3. In a large skillet, brown ground beef with onion
4. Peel and chop carrot
5. Add carrot and peas to ground beef near the end of the browning process
6. stir in cornstarch, and quickly add water
7. Add salt and pepper to taste
8. Stir and cook until gravy thickens (this should only take a minute or two)
9. Spread hash browns into a 9×13 inch baking dish
10. Pour hamburger/gravy mixture over the top
11. Place in center of oven, and bake for 20-25 minutes
12. Remove from oven and let rest for five minutes before serving (you don’t *have* to let it rest, but it serves up nicer when it’s cooled a bit)
13. Enjoy!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.