If you haven’t discovered the joys of substituting rutabagas for potatoes in a SIBO diet, this Shepherd’s Pie recipe is going to convert you. This is my go-to meal whenever we’re in serious need of comfort food. 🙂
Ingredients:
2 large rutabagas, chopped (I like to double or triple this amount, so I can store additional 2 cup servings in ziplock bags in my freezer… ready for busy nights and recipes like this.)
1 TBL olive oil
2 large carrots, diced (the carrots I used for these photos were yellow, not orange)
1 handful of green beans, chopped into 1/2” lengths
1/2 medium red bell pepper, diced
Optional: 1 parsnip, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced
1 pound ground / minced beef
1/3 cup of green leek tops, chopped fine
1/2 cup peas (see Note 1)
1 – 2 TBL coconut flour
1/2 tsp dried savory
3 TBL tomato sauce
1/4 cup old red wine (see Note 2) or 1 TBL red wine vinegar
Dash of coconut aminos (learn more here)
Water to moisten
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup grated aged cheddar cheese (more aged = better flavor and better for your gut)
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a large saucepan, add the chopped rutabagas and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook until tender. Drain, and mash with butter and water until smooth.
While rutabagas are cooking, prepare the vegetable / meat mixture: in a large frying pan, bring olive oil to medium heat. Add carrots, beans, bell pepper, celery, and parsnip (if using). Sprinkle a little kosher salt over everything and sauté just until they start to turn golden around the edges.
Move vegetables to the edges of the pan, and add ground beef, stirring until cooked through and crumbly.
Stir in peas, leek tops, flour, and dried savory, shaking pan / stirring all ingredients until flour is blended in consistently.
In a small glass or pyrex, blend together the tomato sauce, old red wine (or vinegar), and coconut aminos. Pour this over the meat mixture in the frying pan and stir to incorporate evenly. If the mixture seems a bit dry, add enough water to moisten—you don’t want the mixture to be soupy, but it does need to be a little loose. Taste and add salt and pepper to your preference.
Butter or lightly oil a large casserole dish with a lid. Ladle the meat mixture into the dish, and top with cheddar cheese and nutmeg (far left photo in the below 3-image set).
Spread mashed rutabagas on top of the cheese, using the back of your spoon to even out the depth all around the top of the casserole (middle photo in the below 3-image set)..
Cover the casserole and bake for 45 minutes (until the top looks like the far right photo in the below 3-image set). Remove, allow to rest for about 10 minutes to let juices re-absorb (if you can stand to wait that long), and serve!
Note 1: According to Allison Siebecker ND’s SIBO Ingredient list, peas are allowed in small quantities (i.e., 1/4 cup. If you’re serving two VERY hungry people who each eat HALF of this dish, the most they’ll get is 1/4 cup each.)
Note 2: Don’t throw out red wine! Leftover red wine can be capped (just re-insert the cork) and stored in the pantry to turn into a more soft red wine vinegar that adds depth of flavor to all sorts of dishes. Not only does red wine contain very little of the sugar that is a risk in SIBO diets, but aging it reduces that risk even more.
My SIBO Recipes 