I don’t know what it is about eggy foods, but I can’t get enough of them. I’m not a big fan of eggs by themselves, or even omelets, but put a quiche, bread pudding, or (best of all) crepe in front of me, and I will not leave the table until the plate is licked clean.
Since I can’t afford to go out to brunch every day, where I’d be able to fill my maw with these eggcellent dishes (I’m sorry, you know I had to), I decided to learn how to make them myself.
The easiest, quickest, and most affordable of these is quiche. ESPECIALLY if you make a crustless one (hey! fewer calories and gluten-free-friendly, too!). This recipe easily makes enough for four people, and uses a 9″ x 9″ casserole dish.
Ingredients:
- Any leftover cooked meat, diced (optional)
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup milk
- Some salt (garlic, celery, smoked, seasoning, whatever)
- Some pepper
- Some veggies, diced (bell pepper, kale, meaty tomatoes, mushrooms, etc.)
- 1 cup shredded cheese
Instructions:
- Grease a 9″ x 9″ dish.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
- Whisk together eggs, sour cream, milk, and seasonings, until combined.
- Layer cooked, diced meat on bottom of casserole dish.
- Layer veg of choice over the meat.
- Fold cheese into egg mixture.
- Gently pour egg mixture into casserole dish until meat/veg is covered.
- Emergency measures: If you went crazy with the veg and need more eggy goodness, whisk 2 more eggs with 1/2 cup milk and add.
- Bake for 50-60 minutes, then remove from oven.
- Let stand an additional 5-10 minutes to set.
- Serve warm.
Enjoy!
What’s your favorite easiest quiche recipe?
Yeah yeah yeah… I’ll go make that dang quiche I’ve been craving for weeks. -exaggerated eyeroll-
Random linguistic/cooking question: is there any difference between a crustless quiche and a frittata?
I had a similar thought. From Google:
“Quiche is made by adding ingredients to a custard base, a combination of eggs and heavy cream, which gives it a deliciously creamy consistency when baked. Replace the cream with half and half or milk to cut the fat. Quiche usually has a crust, but it doesn’t have to.
Eggs get top-billing in a frittata. Frittatas have no crust and little, if any, milk or cream. Frittatas are cooked first on the stovetop, then finished in the oven or under the broiler.”
The more you know! 😛
I was wondering the same! Frittatas are my jam. You can do them in the crock pot too, overnight, for a hot breakfast in the morn.
Frittata in Italy is cooked on the stove – no broiler or oven involved. The tricky part is flipping it… Which i suppose is why people would use the broiler instead 🙂
That does sound tricky! I use the oven, not the broiler. I use the stovetop first, to cook the ingredients (except for the eggs, cheese and spinach) then put it in the oven in a ceramic dish once I’ve mixed everything together. 385 for about 40 mins.
I love baking in ceramic dishes 🙂
But for frittata – on the stove it’s done in like 10 minutes… Plus, when you get to flip it right it’s oddly satisfying.
According to my little old Italian father (Italy-born), though real men may not eat quiche, *real* men eat frittata!
Just kiddin’…quiche and frittata are for anybody. 🙂
We make quiche a lot in our house. I’m a vegetarian, my husband and 2 sons are omnivores, and my daughter would be a vegetarian if it weren’t for pepperoni. Meaning eggs are basically the only protein that we will all eat.
With 3 kids and a job outside the house I don’t have much time to get dinner on the table when I get home. So preparing a crust is out. We rotate between a crust less quiche and a sweet potato crust quiche. For the sweet potato crust I peel the potato and then cut into super thin slices. If I am feeling fancy I will slice them with the slicer attachment on my food processor. If I don’t want to clean the food processor then I just use a knife and try to slice thin as possible. Then I just toss the potato cookies in olive oil and salt, line the bottom of a pie tin with them, and pour in the egg mixture. Bake as normal.
Sweet potato crust sounds nice. Have you tried it with grated potato so it would be like a rosti? or perhaps the egg would all escape…
I haven’t tried it with grated potato. But I am going to try it tonight for dinner. Yum.
Yum! I make similar but in silicon cup cake cases to have for grab and go breakfast through the week or with salad for lunch. Particularly delicious if you half fill the case, add a bit of red onion marmalade then top up with egg and veggies. I also top them with cheese.
Thaaaaat’s a baskets! moment.
Brilliant. Can’t believe I never tried that.
I like to make my quiche with a potato “crust” by slicing raw potato onto the bottom. Also I like to beat my eggs, then add milk/cheese and then finally the “goodies”.
I’ve also done a potato bottom by tossing tater tots in, baking them for a few minutes, and then pressing them down flat before adding the filling.
I do the whole thing in my cast-iron skillet. First, I sauté the veg while the oven preheats, then I pour in my egg mixture and stick the whole thing in the hot oven. If I want to be fancy, I’ll sprinkle some cheese on top before baking.
Cheese is really expensive in Canada, however, so for my mixture I beat eggs, some milk, a tablespoon or two of flour for body, and seasoning, all in my measuring cup. There are only two things to wash, it’s fast, it’s easy, it’s affordable, uses up ends of veg… perfect.
We make quiche with a rice crust. A couple of cups of cooked riced blended with one egg and some cheese, pressed into the pan and then pre-baked for about ten minutes before adding the rest of the crust.
An even more universal quiche recipe: http://community.babycenter.com/post/a25156511/universal_quiche_recipe
My BF and I were house/dog sitting for a week at a friend’s house when I came across this recipe. Call it fate, but our hosts had kindly left us a fridge full of food, including a metric butt-load of eggs. My BF hates-hates-HATES eggs, but he was very enthusiastic about this recipe (“It’s full of stuff that covers the flavor of the eggs, and it’s so easy even I can make it!”) . He whipped this recipe up, and we chowed down like the 90-lb. pup we were dog-sitting. “Oh, this recipe’s a KEEPER!” he exclaimed around a mouthful of eggy goodness (my boyfriend, that is…not the dog).
Our only comment was that we ended up with a lot of water the bottom of the pan. Maybe it was because we were using an unfamiliar kitchen, or that we weren’t used to a gas oven, or that we simply put in too many veggies. I had considered lining the bottom with toast or croutons next time, but maybe the potatoes (sweet or otherwise) that fellow commenters have discussed would do the trick. Looking forward to trying that!