Quiche is one of our family’s favorite home-cooked meals. One of my favorites parts about making quiche is that I can use up extra fresh ingredients or leftover meats from throughout the week to cut down on the amount of food our family wastes. Cutting down on food waste means saving money! And it offers a versatile meal that we can tweak and change frequently so we don’t get sick of eating it. I don’t know about you but after a long winter, I get so sick of making the same old pasta dishes. But with something like quiche, it tastes completely different when it’s made one week with ham, broccoli and cheese compared to a different night when we use some leftover fried chicken and onions. (You get the idea). But this particular recipe is one of our family’s new favorites – it tastes like a twice baked potato – YUM!
Baking Equipment You Will Need
- Pie Plate
- Rolling Pin
- Parchment Paper
- Pastry Cutter (optional)
Crust
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 cup of flour
- 1/3 cup of butter
- 1/4 cup of cold water
Instructions:
In a large mixing bowl, add your flour and butter. I like to place the butter in a microwave safe bowl and put it in the microwave for about 15-20 seconds to help it fully soften before I put it with the flour. It helps to speed up the process of blending the two if the butter is extra soft.
Using a fork or a pastry cutter, mix your flour & butter together until it is fully mixed into small crumbles.
Next, add your 1/4 cup of cold water. Continue using the fork or pastry cutter to incorporate the water. The mixture should begin to clump together into larger sections. You may need to add an additional 1-2 Tablespoons of cold water to get the right texture.
Tips for New Bakers –
You want to be able to pick it up and form a ball – but it takes a little work to get the crumbly mixture to pull together. So you don’t want it so wet that it forms too easily. Pick up a chunk of dough and try to form a ball. If it is impossible to do – you need more water. If it happens too easily and is super sticky – you’ve added too much water. But it’s okay – you just counter a wet mixture with a little extra flour to balance your consistency back out.
Once you have a ball of dough formed, place it on a piece of parchment paper. Sprinkle a little flour underneath and on top of the ball and place another piece of parchment on top of the ball. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a circle that is about 2 inches wider than the pie plate you will use to cook your quiche.
Gently remove the top piece of parchment paper. Then carefully fold out your dough into your pie plate. Next, tuck extra dough underneath the edge of your pie crust and pinch the edges off.
Place the pie crust in the oven (without any filling) for about 10 minutes to precook your crust. This will give you a nice firm crust that isn’t soggy when you later bake your quiche. When you remove the crust after this step – you may notice that the bottom has puffed up – that’s okay. Just use a fork to poke at the bottom and it will fall back down.
Filling
The ingredients for this recipe are pretty simple:
- 1 Onion (chopped finely)
- 2 cups of Kale (chopped)
- Bacon (chopped into 1/2 inch pieces)
- 1 1/2 cups of Cheese (cheddar is great but you can use anything you have on hand)
- 6-8 Eggs
- 1 1/2 cups of milk
Instructions:
(1) Start by chopping your bacon & veggies, setting each aside (keep each ingredient separate in a small bowl).
(2) Add enough olive oil to the bottom of a cast iron or stainless steel fry pan. Place the fry pan on your burner and turn it on medium-high heat.
(3) Add the onion to your pan and saute for a few minutes until the onion begins to become translucent. You can adjust the heat on the burner to medium if the onion begins to brown too quickly.
(4) Next, add your bacon to the fry pan, continuing to cook the mixture until the bacon is fully cooked.
(5) Set the pan aside to let it cool. While the pan cools, crack your eggs and place the eggs in a large mixing bowl. Use a fork or a whisk to beat the eggs, breaking the yolks and helping to fluff them up a bit.
(6) Add 1 1/2 cups of whole milk. Whisk to incorporate the milk into the eggs.
(7) Then, add your cooled meat/veggie mixture, shredded cheese and your chopped kale to your egg mixture. Stir and pour it into your prepared crust.
(8) Bake for 40-45 minutes, checking it occasionally within the last 10 minutes. When the top of the quiche is lightly browned on top and is firmly set (when you can rock or shake it gently and it no longer jiggles) – it’s done.
All that’s left is to remove it from the oven, serve & enjoy!
