This Mashed Potato Secret Will Elevate Your Shepherd's Pie

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Shepherd's pie is a hearty comfort food, pub staple, and dish you should try making at home during the colder months (we've even got a shepherd's pie recipe for you to try). Mashed potatoes are as important to a shepherd's pie as the savory, meaty filling, and the goal is to create a mashed potato topping that's sturdy, decadent, and fluffy all at once. The secret to the best mashed potato layer, however, lies not in additional ingredients, but in how you incorporate the dairy into the spuds.

Warming your dairy ingredients — consisting of cream, milk, butter, or a combination of all three — is essential for achieving a light, pillowy texture. Hot potatoes will absorb hot liquid more readily than cold liquid. If you try to mash in cold milk and cold sticks of butter, the melting and absorption will take extra time. This means more mashing, which is like overworking bread dough — your finished product will likely have a heavy, glue-like consistency.

In an exclusive chat with Chowhound, James Sawyer, executive chef at Ri Ra Irish Pub in Las Vegas, advised home chefs to "heat the milk and butter together until the butter has melted and the milk is hot but not boiling" before working the mixture into the potatoes. This will save you the extra elbow grease of mashing in cold dairy, elevating the final texture of the mashed potato topping and your shepherd's pie.

Warming your dairy is only one of many tips you need for the best mashed potatoes. In fact, celebrity chef Ina Garten recommends mashing potatoes in a food mill (like this Hungry Artisan model on Amazon) before adding warmed dairy and mixing it in quickly. Garten also recommends adding buttermilk for a nice kick of acidity. If you don't have a food mill, a potato ricer is another great option for achieving a uniformly smooth texture. Before you even mash your potatoes, however, drain them well to prevent any water from sabotaging your shepherd's pie.

Next, try dressing up your mashed potato topping with extra seasonings like aromatics, herbs, and cheese. Mash roasted garlic in with the potatoes before folding in milk, butter, and shredded Parmesan for a rich balance of caramelized, aromatic sweetness and salty, nutty cheese. Stir in chopped scallions for a pop of green and a delicate, onion-y flavor. Finally, round out the meat and potatoes by adding a bag of frozen veggies to the filling.

Another mistake people make with shepherd's pie is not letting the dish rest after pulling it out of the oven. You want all those flavorful juices and seasonings to redistribute throughout the pie before you and your guests dig in.

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