Plan my cook day

Cottage Pie for the freezer, sized for your family

It’s 6pm, the kids are hungry, and tonight’s dinner is already made. You cooked the beef cottage pie in one big batch and froze it in containers, one dinner to each. Move a container to the fridge the night before, and that’s dinner.

Makes
8 portions
On the night
Nothing to cook
A portion
About 680 kcal
Plan my cook day

One afternoon of batch cooking, weeks of dinners.

Cottage Pie

How to make it

Make it all ahead for the freezer.

Beef cottage pie

Make ahead and freeze

Or cottage pie (vegetarian)

Ingredients for 8 portions

Method

Prep

  1. Boil the kettle.
  2. Peel maris piper potatoes and cut into 4 cm chunks.
  3. Dice onions and carrot into 1 cm pieces.
  4. Slice chestnut mushroom 5 mm thick.
  5. Pick the leaves from sprig of thyme.
  6. Zest lemon and grate extra mature cheddar cheese.

Filling

  1. Dissolve beef stock cube in water from the kettle in a jug.
  2. Heat olive oil in your biggest casserole pan over a medium heat. Fry the onion, carrot, mushrooms and thyme for 10 minutes until softened.
  3. Add mince beef a handful at a time so the pan stays hot, breaking it up, and fry for 8 minutes until browned all over.
  4. Stir in plain flour and cook for 1 minute.
  5. Pour in bitter and the stock and add dried bay leaf.
  6. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring now and then, until thick.

Mash

  1. While the filling simmers, boil the kettle again, put the potatoes in a large saucepan and pour over enough boiling water to cover. Bring back to the boil.
  2. Simmer for 15 minutes until a knife slides in easily.
  3. Drain, then mash with unsalted butter, single cream and the lemon zest.
  4. Take the bay leaves out of the filling.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spoon the filling into your containers, one meal to each, and spread the mash over the top.
  2. Scatter over the cheese.

To eat now

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.
  2. Bake for 30 minutes until golden and bubbling.
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Nutrition

Per portion, beef cottage pie
Energy
680 kcal
Fat
31.1g
Carbohydrate
63.4g
Protein
35.8g
Nutrition details
Energy
680 kcal
Fat
31.1g
of which saturates
14.8g
Carbohydrate
63.4g
of which sugars
9.4g
Fibre
8.2g
Protein
35.8g
Salt
0.98g

Estimated from ingredient data.

How we’d cook it, not advice. We don’t check recipes for allergens, and ingredients vary by brand, so check the label on everything you use. Prepare and cook food the way the Food Standards Agency says. Allergens and food safety

Cottage Pie with beef cottage pie Beef cottage pie, made ahead and frozen. Beef cottagepie
Make ahead and freeze

How it comes together

Ready for the freezer

  1. Make the beef cottage pie

  2. Let it cool.

    “cool any warm dishes before putting them in your freezer”, says the Food Standards Agency.

  3. Beef cottage pie. Put the lid on the container.

  4. Label each container with the dish and the date.

No special kit. The beef cottage pie works best in foil trays with lids. Any freezer-safe container does the job too.

Ready to eat

  1. The night before, move the beef cottage pie to the fridge.

    “the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight”, says the Food Standards Agency.

  2. Beef cottage pie. Heat it in the oven until it’s steaming hot all the way through and golden.

    “it is important that food is cooked to steaming hot throughout, rather than warmed”, says the Food Standards Agency.

Nomstash plans the rest

  • Everything from one shop

    The food and the foil trays with lids on one shopping list, with an estimated cost before you go.

  • Sized for your family

    Say who’s eating and every container holds the right amount, growing as the children do.

  • No more UFOs

    Unidentified Frozen Objects, as the Food Standards Agency calls them. Each container says what’s inside and the day you made it.

  • A reminder the night before

    Nomstash tells you which container to move to the fridge for tomorrow’s dinner.

Plan my cook day

  • Already keep a freezer spreadsheet?

    Paste it in from Excel or Google Sheets, or choose a CSV file, and Nomstash reads it into your stash.

    Bring in my freezer list

Make it a cook day

Add two or three more dishes to the same afternoon, and one shop covers the lot.

Batch cooking: cook once, eat all month

Freezing and defrosting safely

The rest of the Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words, is in our freezing and defrosting guide.

Sources

  1. Food Standards Agency How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely gov.uk
  2. Food Standards Agency Cooking your food gov.uk

Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.

Make cottage Pie your first batch.

Nomstash plans the shop, sizes every container and reminds you the night before. Nomstash is in beta.

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