The Unexpected Cheesy Upgrade Your Shepherd's Pie Deserves

Shepherd's pie –- that meat-filled, veggie-laden, mashed potato-topped, casserole-y mound of goodness your mom used to make when the winter winds whipped themselves up into a frenzy. Few dishes warm the tummy quite like it. Given that it has all the necessary components of a savory comfort food, it's difficult to believe that you could add anything to it to make it even more, well, comforting. Au contraire, mon frère. Enter Cheez Whiz, that melty, ooey-gooey jarred cheese dip that marries the flavor of American cheese with the meltability of room temperature butter. This, combined with the mashed potatoes that top shepherd's pie, creates the kind of flavor and texture experience that you'd expect to find in a pile of mashed potatoes at a roadside diner. In other words, it's quite epic in a greasy spoon kinda way.

Adding Cheez Whiz to your mashed potatoes is easy enough — a simple secret that will make your mashed potatoes taste even better. Most recipes for shepherd's pie call for the casserole's interior to be mixed together and poured into a baking dish or pan before the potatoes are added. It's at this point that you want to add the cheese to the potatoes (they haven't had a stint in the oven yet). 

Once you have the spuds mashed to the consistency you like for your shepherd's pie, fold in a couple of big dollops of Cheez Whiz. It doesn't take much. Although Cheez Whiz is a liquid cheese, adding it to your shepherd's pie's potatoes shouldn't change their consistency very much. However, it'll change the flavor of them a great deal (and for the better). 

If you're worried that your mashed potatoes might get a bit runny with the addition of Cheez Whiz, try making the spuds a bit drier than usual and then drop in the cheese sauce. If you think the potatoes are still too dry post-cheese, you can always pour in a bit of milk to perk them up.

It's also the case that many home gourmands doctor up their spuds by topping them with the grated cheese of their choice. Folding Cheez Whiz into your mashed potatoes doesn't mean you can't also top them with grated cheese. This is an especially tasty option if you like the taste of crispy baked cheese on lasagna or baked ziti (and you happen to love cheese in general).

If you go this route, try experimenting with different flavors of cheese that will complement the flavor of the Cheez Whiz. Pepper jack, mozzarella, Fontina, Gouda, and even Parmesan (a tip from Gordon Ramsay) cheeses are all flavorful choices, though you're not limited to these. These topper cheeses can be grated onto the potatoes after the casserole has had a chance to bake in the oven for a while. You do want the grated cheese to melt and possibly turn crispy in the process, but you don't want it to burn, so wait a bit before you sprinkle it on top of the pie.

Typically, most traditional shepherd's pie (or even cottage pie) recipes aren't spicy. If you'd like to make the casserole spicier, you have the option of swapping out the Cheez Whiz in the potatoes for a spicy cheese sauce, like Tostitos Queso cheese dips. The process for adding these dips to your mashed potatoes doesn't change. The only thing that's different is the kind of cheese you're mixing into the spuds.

Additionally, there are other variations of these kinds of cheese dips you can use. Some are spicy white cheeses. Others are salsa and cheese blends. Still others come with ingredients like roasted red peppers and garlic, which add more flavor to the shepherd's pie. Jalapeño, smoked Gouda, and smoky bacon cheese spreads, to name but a few, also exist. All would be delish options for your shepherd's pie's potatoes. 

The latter options allow the home gourmand to flavor up their dish without adding in extra spices. If you're concerned about over-spicing the dish, this is a good way to go, provided that your mashed potatoes recipe doesn't call for much in the way of seasonings. Instead, in a perfect world, the flavor that the Cheez Whiz adds will be strong enough to heighten the flavor of the casserole, but subtle enough to allow all the other flavors in the shepherd's pie to come forward, too.