Meat Pie: easy week night comfort food
Savory meat filled pie cooked in mushroom, onion, garlic, celery, carrots, and thyme. Baked to perfection with flakey buttery pie crust. It is the ultimate hearty meal I couldn't stop making!
I originally wanted to make shepherd's pie, but was too lazy to make mashed potatoes on a weeknight. Turns out, using a pie crust instead makes this a meat pie!
I'm glad my laziness led me to this meat pie. I never had meat pie before and I honestly didn't know what to call this dish, but I knew I couldn't call it Shepherd's pie without the mashed potatoes. Either way, it's delicious and better with pie crust in my opinion. The combination of celery, onion, carrots, mushrooms, and garlic will guarantee the heartiest and richest flavor for your meat filling. I've made this meat pie so many times the past few weeks. It's simply too good!
Gather Your Ingredients
Make sure you take the pie crust out of the freezer and store it in the fridge before hand. Waiting for the pie crust to thaw from the freezer can take awhile.
It would defeat the purpose of this quick meal if you had to wait and thaw the pie crust so I figured I'd throw that remind out there! Thank gosh I had stocked up on pie crusts earlier in the week so I could make this awesome dish. Life has been pretty busy lately with working extra hours and planning my Thailand trip. I find myself with less time on my hands, and it's becoming harder to put that extra effort into my weekly meals. So I'm all for any easy alternatives like substituting mashed potatoes out for pie crust, saving me precious time. I know I'm babbling about mashed potatoes and pie crust, but honestly using pie crust for this recipe turned out for the best. Even though my husband thinks mashed potatoes are better, he still really enjoyed this meat pie.
Usually, the manufacture's instruction on the box will suggest letting the frozen pie crust thaw in room temperature for about an hour before using or if stored in the fridge, sit in room temperature for 10-15 minutes. If you know you're making this recipe, it's best to store the crust in the fridge. Let the pie crust chill on the counter while you're chopping the vegetables to save time and you'll have this delicious meat pie in 30 minutes!
Seriously, the hardest part about this recipe is chopping up the vegetables. I hope your up for a challenge.
After you have all your vegetables chopped and set aside, it's basically a one-pan meal that everyone loves. Let the vegetables work for themselves in the hot pan, extracting all that good stuff out to create a good base of flavors for the beef. If you've ever made a beef stew before, you know that carrots, celery, and onion create the base! They especially go very well with beef so you already know this meat pie is about to hit the spot.
Meat Pie: easy weeknight comfort food
Savory meat filled pie cooked in mushroom, onion, garlic, celery, carrots, and thyme. Baked to perfection with flakey buttery pie crust.
Equipment
- 9 inch pie plate or 7x11 inch baking dish
Ingredients
- 1-1½ pound lean ground beef
- 1 pie crust, thawed
- 3 stalks celery, diced
- 3 medium size carrots, diced
- 8 oz baby bella cremini brown mushroom, diced
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 3 garlic, minced
- 4 springs thyme
- 3 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 cup beef broth
- ¼ cup flour
- 3 tbsp butter
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Pie
- Make sure the pie crust is thawed according to the package instruction. Follow the steps to pre heating the oven suggested on the package. It's usually 450℉.
Meat filling
- In a large size pan on medium heat, drizzle in some oil. Throw in all the vegetables and herbs; carrots, onion, mushrooms, celery, garlic, and thyme. Saute the vegetables for 6 minutes until softened to create a rich hearty base for the beef. Then add in tomato paste. Combine real well.
- Add in butter in the middle of the pan, once melted, add in flour to the melted butter. This will help thicken the sauce.
- Add in ground beef and cook until done about 5 minutes.
- Deglaze the pan with beef stock to get the brown bits off the pan. Bring the meat sauce to a quick simmer. Salt and pepper to taste.
- Transfer the meat filling to your baking dish. Cover the meat filling with the pie crust. Trim the edges of the dough and seal the edges with a fork or crimp the edges with your fingers. Make some slits on the pie to allow air flow while baking.
- Bake the pie according to the pie crust package instruction. Usually 10-13 minutes at 450℉. Enjoy!