Can you freeze cottage pie (vegetarian)?
Yes, before its final cook. Freeze it in portions, one to each container.
How to freeze and defrost it, with the Food Standards Agency’s advice at each step.
The recipe
One batch makes 10 portions.
Ingredients for 10 portions
Method
Lentil filling
- Boil the kettle.
- Peel and dice onions, carrot and celery stick into 1 cm pieces.
- Peel and crush garlic clove, and slice chestnut mushroom 5 mm thick.
- Melt unsalted butter in your biggest pan over a medium heat.
- Add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic and fry for 15 minutes until soft and golden.
- Turn the heat up a little, add the mushrooms and fry for 4 minutes until they soften.
- Add dried bay leaf and fresh thyme, then stir in dried green lentils.
- Pour in red wine (check the label says vegetarian) and water from the kettle, crumble in vegetable stock cube and stir well.
- Bring to a simmer and cook uncovered for 45 minutes, stirring now and then, until the lentils are very soft and most of the liquid has gone. Don't let it get too dry; it should still be saucy.
Mash
- While the lentils simmer, boil the kettle again, then peel king edwards potatoes and cut into 4 cm chunks.
- Put the potatoes in a large pan, pour over enough boiling water from the kettle to cover and bring back to the boil.
- Simmer for 15 minutes until a knife slides in easily.
- Drain well and tip back into the pan.
- Add unsalted butter and whole milk and mash until smooth. Season with salt and black pepper.
Finish the filling
- Take the lentils off the heat, season with salt and pepper, then stir in the tomato puree.
Assemble and bake
- Spoon the lentil filling into your containers, one meal to each.
- Spread the mash over the top and scatter over extra mature cheddar cheese.
To eat now
- Preheat the oven to 170°C fan.
- Bake for 30 minutes until the top is golden and bubbling.
How to freeze
-
cool any warm dishes before putting them in your freezer
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Put the lid on the container.
How to defrost
-
the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Take the lid off.
- 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.
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
Nutrition
Per portion- Energy
- 599 kcal
- Fat
- 20.8g
- Carbohydrate
- 78.4g
- Protein
- 20.3g
Nutrition details
- Energy
- 599 kcal
- Fat
- 20.8g
- of which saturates
- 9.7g
- Carbohydrate
- 78.4g
- of which sugars
- 8.5g
- Fibre
- 12.7g
- Protein
- 20.3g
- Salt
- 3g
Estimated from ingredient data (98% of ingredients included).
Made some already? Add it to your stash. Mark it always in and Nomstash tells you when you’re running low.
Used in
No special kit
- Works best in foil trays with lids Any freezer-safe container does the job too.
- Everything from one shop Batch cook it with Nomstash and the foil trays with lids go on the same shopping list as the food.
Cook what you already cook
-
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
Freezing and defrosting safely
The Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words.
Label everything you freeze.
label food you freeze so you don’t end up with Unidentified Frozen Objects (UFOs)
The rest of the Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words, is in our freezing and defrosting guide.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely gov.uk
- Food Standards Agency Cooking your food gov.uk
Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.