Slow cooker cottage pie

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Using my slow cooker, particularly in Winter, has to be one of my favourite ways to make a tasty meal for my family. I love being able to load up the ingredients for this slow cooker cottage pie, and then at the end of a long work day we have a tasty meal to enjoy together as a family.

It only takes a few minutes for me to load up the slow cooker with the ingredients, and then I know that dinner is under control.

Meal planning with mince is a great way to save money on groceries. Meal planning always helps me with my money saving challenges as groceries are one area you can cut back and save quite a few pounds every week!

I love the convenience of the slow cooker and that we can eat our dinner, together, whenever we are ready. This means if one of our daughters is unwell, or stays up later than expected, that our dinner is not ruined.

This takes just over 5 minutes to get into the slow cooker. If you’re looking for some inspiration for other slow cooker recipes then be sure to check out my Easy slow cooker recipes (UK recipes).

Be sure to check out my slow cooker tips while you’re here too.

Ingredients for slow cooker cottage pie:

Carrots

Onions

Celery (add any other vegetables like leeks or lentils)

Mince (I use 5% – 250g for a large cottage pie)

Thyme – 1 tablespoon (use a little less if you don’t like strong herb flavour)

Garlic cloves (to your preferred strength – 3 cloves for us)

Brown Sauce – 1 tablespoon

Worcestershire sauce – just a dash

300ml of beef stock (reduced salt)

Flour – 1/2 tablespoon

Mash topping for slow cooker cottage pie:

800g potatoes

30g butter

I’ve also used my root vegetable mash, pressure cooker mash, air fryer mash or slow cooker mashed potatoes in the past too.

Method for slow cooker cottage pie:

Brown the mince first if that is your preference. I feel this makes it have the most flavour so strongly recommend spending a few minutes on this if you have them to spare.

Diced the carrots, onions and celery into a small fine dice.

Add all of the ingredients, minus the flour and mash ingredients, into the slow cooker pot.

You can cook these ingredients on high for 4 hours, or low for 8 hours. You’ll want to set a reminder to carry out the next steps 2 hours before serving, so do that now!

30-45 minutes before adding the mash I take the flour, mix with a little water, and then stir this threw the cottage pie ingredients.

Once another 15-30 minutes have passed I cook the mash and then add this to the top of the slow cooker cottage pie filling. I cook for another 1-1.5 hours on high.

Often we cook ours in the oven, as we love the crispy top. Top the slow cooker cottage pie filling with mash, and scrape a fork across the top. This will help to get lots of lovely crispy bits. Cook it on gas mark 6, 200c, for around 25-30 minutes. Alternatively, you can grill it if you have hot mash ready and just want a crispy top.

Can you make a slow cooker cottage pie without browning the mince?

Yes, if you’re short on time then you can just throw the mince in and skip this step. However, do not use frozen mince – fresh only! Frozen mince may take too long to come up to a safe internal temperature and you don’t want your convenient dinner to make you unwell!

Can you make slow cooker cottage pie with sliced potatoes?

Yes! I would recommend, just like with my beef hotpot recipe, that you can make an absolutely delightful looking meal by using sliced potatoes. You’ll want to dab the top of the potato slices with butter, and finish this off in the oven, rather than in the slow cooker, for a delicious crispy potato top.

Making Colmans cottage pie in the slow cooker:

You absolutely can use a cottage pie mix to make it in the slow cooker. Consider cutting down on the liquid slightly, as it won’t evaporate in the slow cooker like it will in the oven. You can cook the Colmans mix for the same time as my above recipe, and it will turn out great!

These mixes have lots of flavour and can be a great way to make a tasty meal without keeping a large stock of herbs and spices – perfect if you’re not a regular cook!

ALL of the slow cooker recipes on this website have been cooked using a Ninja Foodi OL750UK, or the previous model, but you can use ANY slow cooker, as timings should be very similar.

Like this slow cooker cottage pie? Fancy trying another one of my slow cooker recipes? Here are some great ones:

• Slow cooker mashed potatoes
• 20+ slow cooker tips and tricks
• Slow cooker sausage casserole
• Slow cooker cottage pie
• Slow cooker pulled pork
• Easy roast dinner recipes – Make Sunday lunch a doddle!
• Slow cooker beef casserole with dumplings
• Slow cooker chicken curry – Quick and simple!
• Slow cooker chicken and prawn paella recipe
• Slow cooker hunters chicken

Why not try one of these fantastic slow cooker accessories:

How to make my slow cooker cottage pie:

Note: All calorie information is for demonstration purposes only and is based on the specific uncooked ingredients that I used when creating the recipe.

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