Today I'm going to demystify quiche so you can make one without a recipe, at the drop of a hat, without even thinking about it. It's all about the ratio.
I guess we should get the "Do real men eat quiche?" question out of the way. Yes they do. And they know how to make it. Since we aren't all part of a backwoods lumberjack camp in the year 1952 that shouldn't come as a surprise to you. We have evolved. Real men even eat cotton candy. It's a mad world we live in.
Have you ever avoided cooking something because you couldn't be bothered to look up a recipe? What if you could cook WITHOUT a recipe? That's when your life in the kitchen really opens up. Certain things you'd never even think of cooking with a recipe. Most people don't need a recipe to make a steak, baked potato and vegetable dinner. But what about something like a quiche?
Quiche is technically part of the baking world and baking is scary. Baking (in terms of pies, cakes, cookies pastries and such) is based on ratios, measurements and science. If you get one thing slightly wrong it can ruin an entire baked good because baking is all about reactions and interactions. Cooking is is for the wild child of the food world, baking is for the slightly more disciplined. The people who drew double red lines under the titles in their school workbooks through the wholeeeeeee year, not just the first week.
So what's a freewheeling cook to do when they come up against something like quiche that needs proper measurements to turn out great?
You just have to remember your egg to liquid ratio.
If you can memorize the ratio you can make a perfect quiche without having to look at a single recipe.
Table of Contents
Egg to Dairy Ratio for Quiche.
1 large egg - ½ cup dairy (milk, cream or a combination of the two)
A standard 9" pie plate would need 3 eggs and 1 ½ cups of cream to fill it.
There are other ratios that people use, (more egg, less egg) but I've had the best luck with the 1 - ½ ratio.
Vegetable Ratio for 9" Quiche.
1 cup vegetable (sauté your veg before adding them to the quiche)
1 cup cheese (cheddar, swiss, goat cheese and fontina are all good choices)
Don't worry, I'm going to give you an actual recipe at the end of this post, but just for fun and to gain a little kitchen confidence, try baking this quiche without looking at the recipe. Just trust your gut. As long as your ratios are right you can't go wrong.
You can fill your quiche with whatever you want; leeks, broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, cheese, bacon, sun-dried tomatoes ... anything you have on hand. The amount doesn't really matter, but if you need a guideline aim for 1 cup of vegetables and ¾-1 cup of cheese.
For a simple leek quiche:
Blind bake your pie crust (either frozen store bought or homemade). It just makes life easier. Prick the uncooked pie crust all over with a fork, cover it with parchment paper, fill the crust with pie weights or dried beans and bake in a 425 F (220 C) oven until the crust starts to get golden - around 15 minutes. Take the pie out, remove the weights and parchment paper and cook for another 5 minutes to brown up and dry the bottom of the crust.
Clean and prep the leek like this. Then slice the leeks thinly and sauté in some butter until they're translucent. I use about 3 leeks for a quiche. Sprinkle a good bit of salt (1tsp) over the leeks while they're cooking and then let them cool. Add a splash of dry white wine to the leeks as you're cooking them if you want to get fancy.
Mix the cooled leeks with the egg/cream mixture and pour it into your prebaked pie crust. Dot the entire quiche with healthy chunks of crumbled goat cheese and bake at 350f (175c) until it's set. About 25 minutes.
In short form that means making a Quiche is this:
- Blind bake crust.
- Sauté vegetables.
- Mix 1 part eggs with ½ part dairy.
- Mix vegetables and egg mixture together and pour into crust.
- Sprinkle in whatever cheese you're using.
- Bake at 350 F (175 C) for 25-35 minutes.
- Eat.
I crumble or sprinkle my cheese on the quiche after the egg mixture has been poured in because I can aim it better, making sure each area of the quiche has an equal portion of cheese. Sometimes when you mix the cheese in with the filling it all comes out as a blob in the end of pouring and is harder to make sure you have an equal distribution of it.
Roasted leeks are a perfect side dish for a quiche. Roast them in the oven. Pop them on a baking sheet after they've been prepped and drizzle them with olive oil and put them in the oven with the quiche. Small leeks will cook in about 35 minutes, larger ones could take an hour or more so get larger leeks into the oven before you put your quiche in.
When you take your roasted leek out of the oven the outer layer will probably be a bit dried out and papery. Just peel that outer layer off.
Leek Quiche Recipe
Leek Quiche
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup milk 1%, 2% or whole milk is fine.
- .5 cups heavy cream Whatever cream you have is fine. 5%, 10%, 18%, 35% ...
- 1 cup leeks sautéed
- 1 unbaked pie crust store bought or home made
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup goat cheese Less cheese is fine, more cheese will be too much.
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- .25 cups dry white wine If you don't have dry white wine you can use vermouth.
Instructions
- Blind bake your pie crust in a 425° (220°C) oven. Simply prick the bottom of your unbaked pie crust with a fork, line it with parchment paper and then add pie weights or dried beans to weigh it down. Bake for 12 minutes (or until crust is just starting to look golden), remove the parchment and weights and bake for another 5 minutes (until bottom of crust is dry and starting to get golden)
- Reduce oven temperature to 350°F (175° C)
- While crust is baking, sauté your leeks in olive oil, sprinkling them with 1 teaspoon of salt. Just before leeks are done, add ¼ cup of dry white wine and cook until almost evaporated. Let leeks cool.
- Mix 3 eggs with dairy. Try not to incorporate too much air in the mixture. Air bubbles in eggs makes them tough.
- Add cooled leeks to the egg mixture and pour into your blind baked pie shell.
- Top with cheese, making sure it's evenly distributed.
- Bake quiche in 350°F (175° C) oven for 20 minutes then check it. If the crust is getting too brown cover it with tin foil or parchment. Cook until it's set and the centre reaches 170°-185°.
Notes
Nutrition
And that is how you make a simple quiche. Do you remember the ratio? Good. Now go see what you have in your fridge and make one.
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Oh this is GREAT!
My boy and I came up with a ratio for cooking eggs the way he liked when he was in elementary school and began making his own breakfast, and found that ratios work pretty darn well because easy to memorize, it was
3:3:1:2:1
cast iron skillet on the stove eye, turn dial to the "3" setting, let it heat for "3" minutes, add "1" pat of better and let it melt, crack in the egg and cook for "2" minutes, flip and cook for "1" minute, came put perfectly for him every time
Ha! I'll have to try that!! ~ karen
You had posted this one a while back. I made it for my mom for Mother's Day. (That's my new mother's day gift. I make a brunch and deliver it on Saturday. That way Mom has breakfast from me, but I get to sleep in and have breakfast in bed with my kids.)
Mom is still talking about this quiche several years later!
Have you ever tried this with no crust (for those of us who can't eat pie crusts)?
Does that make it a frittata?
My husband and kids will eat quiche, but I must call it "ham and cheese pie" to placate their delicate sensibilities. Maybe I'll make one while they're out of town...
I will definitely have to try this. I've never sauteed the veggies before, but then, I usually make the "impossible pie" version that forms its own crust. Using ratios, I can probably even make small ones with ingredients like mushrooms that others here don't like. Nice!
About 10 years ago Michael Ruhlman wrote an entire book on the subject of ratios in cooking. The name of the book is Ratio : the simple codes behind the craft of everyday cooking. You can find the original NY times review at this link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/dining/reviews/29book.html
Now I've gotta search for the perfect pie crust. Never been good at that....
This may be a dumb question, but what tool do you use to mix the egg mixture? I was worried a wisk would beat too much air into the eggs, so I just used a fork and I’m wondering if I didn’t mix it enough because my quiches came out kind of runny. They tasted great, but were very difficult to serve and the slices just fell apart when I lifted them. Any suggestions?
Hi Jessie. Either, or. Sometimes I gently use a whisk and sometimes a fork. But it sounds more like you didn't cook the quiche long enough for it to set. You can take your remaining quiche (if it hasn't literally run out of the crust), cover up the crust so it doesn't overcook and continue to bake the quiche. good luck! ~ karen
What do you mean when you say the phrase “blind bake”? Your instructions are clear, just wondering is all. Can’t wait to try this recipe! I have no idea where our grocer keeps their crusts though.
Hi Kasia. Blind baking is just the term for pre-baking an empty crust in the oven. :) ~ karen!
I can't wait to make this - have fresh real vidalia onions available so it will be an onion quiche with sharpe gouda and garden fresh chives. Your tips are good and the ratio secret is key - thanks for making this so easy for me. (What is that stringy thingy in the last picture? I've never used leeks but assume it is part of the neck and not some trick to see if we are paying attention?)
Does the ratio apply to frittatas as well?
BAH! Thank you for posting! I DO avoid making quiche (though I love it) for this exact reason - always too rubbery - ALWAYS! I can't wait to try this recipe!
Give it a go Alanna! These ratios and NOT overcooking it and this one will not be rubbery. ~ karen!
I understood that for a liquid pie filling you don’t want to prick the crust before baking. For a filling like apple or a creme pie it was ok to prick w/a fork.
Makes no difference. As it puffs up and cooks the crust fills in the holes. You just don't want to prick it for a liquid pie if you aren't pre-baking it. ~ karen!
Lovely to have the ratio clearly outlined. And how dear to see your broomstick leeks! I often put this and that in; "maybe another egg? hmm. Maybe." Quiche has often been my cleaning-the-fridge meal. ( Actually, most of my meals are clean-out-the-fridge meals.)
I'll have to try this. I have a go-to quiche recipe that I always use (the ratio is a bit heavier on the milk/cream) but it doesn't hurt to see if we'll like this even better!
I feel like I should maybe be ashamed that my recipe makes two quiche at a time and uses two premade frozen crusts (Pillsbury deep-dish, comes already in the aluminum pan)...but I just can't muster up enough energy to feel the shame. ;) It's quick, easy, and fairly nutritious if you add enough veggies, plus then I have leftovers for breakfast and lunch and that's good enough for me haha
I love quiche - thanks for bringing back this oldie but goodie. It's a lot easier than everyone thinks - and always impresses. One thing I do that I feel ramps up the flavour just a little more - after the baked pie crust has cooled - and before adding the filling (works with any filling combination) - spread a light layer of dijon mustard on the crust. Makes a huge difference!
Good tip! ~ karen
I love quiche but prefer the crust less variety with bisquick In it. Good to know the ratio though. And I’m definitely a wild child ..I can’t bake to save my soul.
My father-in-law, a retired construction worker, would never eat quiche; it was for foo-foo people. But he loved his "breakfast pie!"
What a difference the name makes - LOL!
I’m not a big quiche fan, to me, I prefer the “stuff” to the eggs. When I had a family at home, I’d make it often but always with way more veg and bacon or ham or whatever.
However i LOVE custard pie! I go overboard on the eggs (5 eggs to 1 1/2 cups milk) and add 3 sheets of gelatin. That’s my go-to food when I’m sick. How odd...it’s really the same as quiche.
Gelatin is the highest food source of glycine. Glycine is an amino acid used (along with the choline in the eggs) in methylation, the process needed in your body to produce energy, neurochemicals, new DNA, and antioxidants that aid your immune system. Think of how every hospital meal tray seems to have a jello cup on it. That ingredient could be the difference.
Uncanny! 😳😳. I was just in our local Metro 7 hours ago picking up a few things and thought to myself “I’d better use up my eggs soon” (living alone, I seem to have too many eggs) and thought of quiche as I walked home! Thank you, Karen. I don’t enjoy cooking (not a wild child) but don’t mind baking as I like the end result ... cake, cookies! I can now throw out all my un-used quiche recipes and use yours.