Park Street Deli Shepherd’s Pie

Every year as St. Patrick’s Day approaches, Aldi begins stocking a variety of Irish-inspired foods. These might include corned beef and cabbage, reuben bites, Irish cheese, Irish soda bread, Irish cream cheesecake, green-frosted cookies and cupcakes, green Lucky Charms cereal, mint chocolate sandwich cookies, specialty alcohol, and more. One product that’s been showing up the last couple of years around St. Patrick’s Day is a frozen shepherd’s pie.

Now, the term shepherd’s pie sparks some disagreement among some people. According to Wikipedia, some people say shepherd’s pie should contain lamb or mutton, while a pie that contains beef should be called a cottage pie. This Aldi shepherd’s pie contains beef and not lamb. We are not Aldi, so we don’t have any control over what Aldi calls its products. For review purposes, we’re mostly concerned about how this dish tastes. However, if the terminology doesn’t sit well with you, you can contact Aldi here.

With that said, this shepherd’s pie looks almost identical in terms of ingredients to one we reviewed three years ago under the Bremer Aldi private label. It looks like this may simply be a rebranded Bremer Shepherd’s Pie.

Park Street Deli Shepherd's Pie

Park Street Deli Shepherd’s Pie cost $6.99 for a 30-ounce package at the time of publication. This is a product of Canada. The package describes it as “seasoned minced beef & vegetables in a savory tomato sauce with a buttery mashed potato topping.”

This is an Aldi Find, so it’s only in stores for a little while. Each store gets one shipment, and after that sells out, it’s not restocked until the following year. Aldi does not offer online ordering for products that are not in stock at your local store.

If you’re looking out for allergens, this contains milk and anchovy (fish).

Other ingredients include potatoes, ground beef, water, milk, corn, peas, carrots, and onion. Not surprisingly, this does contain a few processed ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup (in the Worcestershire sauce that’s included in the pie) along with guar gum.

Park Street Deli Shepherd's Pie

Nutrition information, ingredients, and heating directions. (Click to enlarge.)

One package contains four servings, and each serving has 240 calories, 11 grams of total fat (14% DV), 3.5 grams of saturated fat (18% DV), 620 mg of sodium (27% DV), 22 grams of total carbohydrates (8% DV), 2 grams of total sugars, and no added sugars.

The box has directions for cooking this in a conventional oven (recommended) or in a microwave. This is not recommended for toaster ovens.

To bake in the oven, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Remove film from the tray. Place the tray on a baking sheet on the middle rack. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Halfway through cook time, rotate the baking sheet. Let stand for 3 minutes before serving.

To microwave, remove the tray from the carton. Vent two corners by peeling the film slightly. Heat on high for 15-16 minutes. Remove from microwave and let stand 3 minutes before serving.

Park Street Deli Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd’s pie after baking.

I baked this in my oven. It took about 45 minutes to get the internal temperature up to 165 degrees, so it took a little longer than the box indicated. That seems to be common with larger frozen entrees like this.

Park Street Deli Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd’s pie served with some Parmesan zucchini on the side.

This tastes a lot like what my family remembered the old Bremer Shepherd’s Pie tasting like. It’s primarily minced beef in sauce (the package says tomato sauce; we think it’s more like a gravy) topped with mashed potatoes. The veggies are sparse. We found only the occasional carrot or pea. My family actually liked it that way, preferring for the meat and potatoes to be the stars. If you want more vegetables, though, you might want to serve some cooked veggies on the side that you could mix in. Both the meat and potatoes are flavorful and didn’t last long on our table. The potatoes got slightly crusty on top in the oven, which we liked.

The Verdict:

Park Street Deli Shepherd’s Pie features minced beef and a few veggies in a rich sauce topped with mashed potatoes. (Some people might say this is technically a cottage pie because it contains beef, while a true shepherd’s pie is supposed to contain lamb or mutton.) This meal is heavy on the meat and potatoes and doesn’t contain many vegetables. That didn’t stop our family from eating it all when we served it for dinner. We wish it didn’t contain certain ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, but otherwise it’s flavorful and hits the spot.

About Rachael

Rachael is the Co-founder of Aldi Reviewer. When she isn't busy shopping at Aldi, she enjoys cooking, gardening, writing gothic romance, and collecting more houseplants than she probably should. You can learn more about her at rachaelsjohnston.com.

One Comment

  1. Corn beef adopted in the US as cheap meat for immigrants, many Irish. Not a traditional Irish dish, but now considered so.

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