Hachis Parmentier Recipe (French Cottage Pie)
- Preparation 30 min
- Cooking 55 min
- Servings 6 to 8
- Freezing Absolutely
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🥩 Ground beef or braised leftovers? Settled!
Hachis Parmentier started out as a leftovers dish. In the 1700s you took yesterday’s pot-au-feu beef, chopped it, and buried it under mashed potatoes. That is where the word hachis comes from. Today half the recipes tell you to braise chuck for three hours and the other half start with ground beef, and nobody tells you which one is right. Both are. This is the Tuesday night version, the one people actually make. Got a whole afternoon? Go see my braised beef version instead.
🧀 The Gruyere does not just go on top
This is the only real secret here. Everyone puts cheese on the potatoes, nobody puts it in the meat. I do both, with an egg yolk to bind it. The result is a beef layer that stays juicy instead of turning into a dry, grainy mat. Because that is the problem with this dish, and it is one of the most searched questions about it. The fix is two ingredients added off the heat.
🍽️ A pan that feeds a crowd
A full 9 x 13 gives you six to eight generous portions, and it disappears fast. I make it on nights when there are people at the table and zero interest in juggling three pots. A green salad on the side to cut the richness, sharp mustard for whoever wants it, done. It also freezes, which means one Sunday afternoon can cover two weeknight dinners.
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🥩 Do not overcook the beef
This is pretty much the only way to ruin this dish. Eight to ten minutes, just until the pink is gone, then stop. Every extra minute past that, the ground beef squeezes out its water and tightens up, and nothing brings it back. Remember it still has 25 to 35 minutes in the oven after assembly: it finishes cooking there.
🥚 The egg yolk goes into warm meat, never hot
Ten minutes off the heat is the marker. The meat should feel warm to the touch, not hot. Crack the yolk into a scalding mixture and it cooks on contact, leaving you with little scrambled bits instead of a binder. That yolk, along with the cheese, is what keeps the beef layer juicy in the oven.
🧀 Half the Gruyere goes in the meat
This is what sets this hachis Parmentier apart from every other one. Cheese melted into the beef holds it together and keeps it from drying out, while the cheese on top builds the crust. Add it off the heat along with the egg yolk, or it will stretch and split before you even assemble the dish.
🥔 A ricer, or a masher if that is what you have
For genuinely smooth mash, the ricer wins every time. A masher does the job with a slightly coarser texture, and honestly nobody minds in a baked dish. What you must not use is a food processor: the blades wreck the starch and the mash turns to glue.
🧂 Season generously, really
The mash on top is mild, so the meat underneath has to be assertive or the whole thing tastes flat. Taste the beef mixture before you assemble, while it is cooling. A dish under-seasoned at that stage cannot be rescued once it is buried under potatoes.
🔥 Those 2 minutes under the broiler matter
After 25 to 35 minutes the cheese is melted and barely starting to color. Two minutes under the broiler on the center rack gets you the golden crispy patches that make the dish look like something. Do not walk away, it goes from browned to burnt in thirty seconds.
📅 Make ahead
Everything except the final bake can be done the day before, which makes this great for company. Chop the onion, garlic and carrots and keep them together in one labeled container. Grate both cheeses and divide them into their portions right away so you are not measuring with full hands. You can even cook the meat completely, cool it, stir in the egg yolk and cheese, and refrigerate. The potatoes, though, get peeled and cubed the same day: hold them in a bowl of cold water in the fridge for one night maximum. Make the mash at the last minute, because it spreads badly once chilled. Assembly takes five minutes and the oven handles the rest while your guests are there.
❄️ Storage and freezing
Leftovers keep three to four days in the fridge. Reheat covered with foil at 350 °F, or in the microwave if you are in a hurry, both work. And yes, it freezes after baking: cool it completely, wrap it well, and it holds three months. Thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating. Like a lot of dishes in this family, it is honestly better the next day once the flavors settle.
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Meat
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) olive oil
- 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
- 2 large carrots, halved lengthwise then thinly sliced
- 2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 3 tbsp (45 ml) tomato paste
- 1 tsp (5 ml) herbes de Provence
- 1/4 tsp (1 ml) freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 lb (900 g) lean ground beef
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) grated Parmesan
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) grated Gruyere
- 3 tbsp (45 ml) chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus more for garnish
- Salt and pepper
Mash
- 2 lb (900 g) Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 3 1/2 tbsp (50 g) salted butter
- 100 ml heavy cream 35%
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) grated Parmesan
- 1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) salt, or more to taste
Topping
- 6 tbsp (90 ml) grated Parmesan
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) grated Gruyere
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Preparation
- Heat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C). Finely chop the onion and garlic. Halve the carrots lengthwise and slice them thin. Peel and cube the potatoes. Grate your cheeses and keep them separate: the Parmesan in three portions (1/4 cup, 2 tbsp, 6 tbsp) and the Gruyere in two equal portions.
- Heat the olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium. Add the onion, garlic and carrots and cook 4 minutes, stirring often, until softened. Add the tomato paste, herbes de Provence and nutmeg, and cook 1 minute to wake everything up.
- Add the ground beef and break it up with a spoon. Season generously with salt and pepper: this layer carries the flavor of the whole dish and it needs to be assertive. Cook 8 to 10 minutes, until no pink remains. No longer, or the meat dries out. Take it off the heat and let it cool 10 minutes.
- While the meat cools, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the potatoes 15 to 20 minutes, until they crush with no resistance. Drain and return them to the hot pot.
- Pass the potatoes through a ricer, then stir in the butter, cream, the 2 tbsp of Parmesan and the salt. Taste and adjust. A masher works too, the texture will just be a little coarser.
- Back to the meat, which should be warm but not hot. Stir in the egg yolk, the 1/4 cup Parmesan, the 1/4 cup Gruyere and the chopped parsley. Mix well, then spread it into a 9 x 13 inch (23 x 33 cm) baking dish.
- Spread the mash evenly over the meat, right to the edges of the dish. Scatter the remaining Parmesan and Gruyere on top. Bake 25 to 35 minutes, until hot through and the cheese starts to brown.
- Switch the oven to broil and give it 2 more minutes on the center rack, watching closely. Pull it out, garnish with fresh parsley and serve.
A French baked dish of chopped or ground meat covered with mashed potatoes and browned in the oven. The name comes from Antoine Parmentier, the agronomist who convinced France to eat potatoes in the late 1700s. Originally it was a way to use up leftover pot-au-feu.
Shepherd’s pie is made with lamb. Cottage pie is the beef version, which is what hachis Parmentier is closest to. The French version adds finely diced vegetables into the meat, cheese browned on top, and usually a binder like egg yolk, where the British versions lean on gravy and often skip cheese entirely.
It refers to Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, an 18th century French pharmacist and agronomist who spent his career convincing his country that potatoes were food and not livestock feed. Any French dish with Parmentier in the name contains potatoes.
Three things. Do not overcook the meat: 8 to 10 minutes is enough, it finishes in the oven. Add an egg yolk to the cooled mixture, it holds moisture. And put cheese directly into the meat, not only on top. All three together solve it for good.
Absolutely, that is the historical version of the dish. Shred or chop your leftover roast or pot-au-feu and swap it in for the same weight of ground beef. Skip the browning step and go straight to mixing with the egg yolk and cheese.
Yes, and it is a good idea. Build the whole dish, cover and refrigerate. Take it out 30 minutes before baking and add 10 to 15 minutes to the time since it starts cold. Add the top cheese just before it goes in the oven so it does not dry out.
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