Crustless quiche is everything you know and love about classic quiches – minus the carbs! While you can put almost anything in it, this ultra easy ham and cheese crustless quiche takes less than 5 minutes to get in the oven, and smells just like Quiche Lorraine.
Keeps perfectly for days, serve it as is, stuff into soft rolls or wraps, crispy burrito style!
Crustless Quiche
If you were to drop round on any given day, there’d likely be some version of crustless quiche in my fridge. This, along with Baked Frittata, are two of my most used fridge clean out recipes because they’re both terrific quick dump-and-bake recipes.
This does take 30 minutes or so to bake. But with pre chopped ham and a bag of shredded cheese, it takes less than 5 minutes to get into the oven – and it smells like a Quiche Lorraine when it’s baking!
Add to that the shelf life – it keeps perfectly for up to 5 days in the fridge. Serve it sliced like a quiche OR stuffed into soft rolls, or rolled up into flatbreads or tortillas then pan fried until crispy, burrito style. (Yes, I realise that defeats the “low carb” pitch for this recipe!😂)
What goes in Crustless Quiche
Here’s what you need for this quick ham and cheese quiche: eggs, cream OR milk, ham, cheese and green onions.
Cream vs Milk
Cream gives it a more luscious, custardy texture like everybody’s favourite Quiche Lorraine. Milk gives it a frittata texture – still quite custardy as long as you don’t overcook it, but it doesn’t have the same luxurious mouthfeel you can only get from cream!
If using milk, we need to reduce the amount of liquid used because eggs can’t hold as much milk as it can cream.
Use your adds ins of choice!
This recipe is more of a formula than actual recipe. Essentially, whisk together 5 eggs and 1 cup of cream OR 1/2 cup of milk, salt and pepper.
Then pour that into a greased pie tin with ~ 2 cups of whatever add-ins you want (I’ve used ham, cheese and green onions) and bake for 30 minutes until puffed and golden.
I do recommend that part of those 2 cups of add-ins includes cheese!
How to make Crustless Quiche
Here’s how I make Crustless Quiche:
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Whisk together the eggs, cream or milk, salt and pepper;
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Put most of the ham, cheese and green onions into a greased pie tin – we hold some back for topping so you get some bits on the surface which looks nice (love the golden cheese crust and browned bits of ham!);
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Pour in all the egg mixture;
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Scatter with remaining ham, cheese and onions;
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Bake 30 – 35 minutes until golden and puffed;
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Rest 5 minutes then slice!
Note: there is major deflation. So don’t get too excited when you see how puffy it is straight out of the oven. See?
But don’t worry. Deflation in height doesn’t result in deflation of tastiness! 😂
How I serve Crustless Quiche
Being the low-carb, easier version of Quiche Lorraine, it would be a wonderful brunch option with a side salad – choose from this ever increasing collection of Vegetable Sides! For a very simple salad, toss any leafy greens or fresh raw vegetables with my Everyday Salad Dressing, and for a show off option, try this Leafy Apple Salad with Candied Walnuts or this Strawberry Spinach Salad (it is Fabulous with a capital “F”!).
But, as depicted and mentioned above, my favourite way is to make sandwiches and burritos out of crustless quiche. Or just piled on toast. It’s fabulously delicious, cheesy, salty and filling too. Big bonus that it keeps for 5 days and freezes fabulously! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Crustless Quiche - Ham and Cheese
Ingredients
- 5 large eggs (~50 - 55g / 2oz each)
- 1 cup cream , heavy/thickened (halve if subbing milk, Note 1)
- 1/4 tsp salt (Note 2)
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 100g/ 3.5 oz ham , diced
- 1 cup shredded cheese (anything that melts except mozzarella, Note 3)
- 1 green onion , sliced
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Grease with butter or spray a 22.5cm / 9" pie dish (Note 4)
- Whisk eggs, cream, salt and pepper.
- Scatter most of the ham, cheese and green onion in the pie pan.
- Pour in egg mixture. Top with remaining ham, cheese and green onion.
- Bake 35 minutes until golden on top and centre barely wiggles. Don't overcook, it will lose custardy-ness.
- Remove from oven, rest 5 minutes and watch it deflate!
- Cut then serve with a simple side salad, or stuff into soft rolls, or wrap into burritos (then pan fry to crisp!)
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
More quiche and frittata type things
(With and without the carbs!)
Life of Dozer
Walk time. He isn’t subtle, is he??
And when he gave up waiting….
Yet another WINNER!! Thank you so much for taking the time to write up instructions there is never any questions left unanswered.
You’re so welcome Marie!! Enjoy! N x
This was the perfect Monday night dinner! I lined the pie dish with a sheet of puff pastry to please the carb-lovers! Greek Salad to accompany it – DELICIOUS! Leftovers are already in tomorrow’s lunch box! Thank you Nagi for another winner!
Perfect Julie!!! Yes it makes a great meal for the week if you prepare in advance too! N x
Love the new feature for changing between metric and cups! Makes it so much easier to read. Please keep this for future recipes.
Bought too many eggs last week, so – voilà – quiche for dinner!
It’s a great feature Kerstin – it should clear up any discrepancies with volume/weight! Sounds like you need to make a pavlova too 😉 N x
Perfect timing as I was looking at your quiche recipes for dinner tonight but am trying to watch the calories so this was a better option. I fried up some onion and mushrooms as had to use them up, as well as the ham. It was delicious and hubby really loved it too!! Even better, it can be taken for lunch tomorrow. Lovely, light and fluffy.
I am also wondering if it would work with tinned salmon or smoked salmon too?
Hi Rebecca, love the flavour combo! And yes can definitely make this with tinned fish – I find tinned salmon and green onions is tasty – or even smoked salmon and asparagus! N x
I’ve made it with tinned salmon and it works well especially with a little dill and lemon zest. Should be able to use smoked salmon as well.
This looks brilliant Nagi and good timing too. I’ve been after some new things to put in the kids’ lunchboxes for school and this fits the bill perfectly. I can knock this up and that’s something for the kids lunches for several days. Super!
Yes perfect Tim! You can even freeze it and pop it in their lunch box frozen – that way by lunch time it will be fresh and will have defrosted 🙌 N x
I love this sort of quiche. I add a 1/3 to a 1/2 cup of flour to my mix and it makes a pretend semblance of a crust! I also make a vege one with two sweated down leeks and some steamed broccoli florets (in place of your ham and green onion) that is super tasty. Or chopped up left over roast vegetables – I always cook extra just for this purpose! We eat a LOT of quiche!
YES!!! Loving all these flavour combos! N x
Can you use light cream? If so same quantity as cream or milk?
Hi Joanne, I’ve mentioned this in the notes 🙂 N x
I love this recipe and if you want the creaminess but not the calories of cream try blitzed cottage cheese instead. You keep the flavour and because it’s blitzed you don’t get the lumpy texture
And it’s a good source of protein too Clare – great tip! N x
Thanks for the recipe, I substitute the cream for low fat yogurt and it is still delicious and less fat
Great Kate! N x
Yes! Just whipped this up super quick for my husbands work tomorrow – extended lockdown means more and more cooking & baking, my kids and I made your triple chocolate cookies earlier today too, delish!!! I had your oven roasted mushrooms for lunch, my toddlers are having ‘Nagi nuggets’ and I’m making Asian beef bowls for the rest of us at dinner 😂 – full on Nagi day here 🤪
Woah I love this Leeanne!! 🥰
Nagi nuggets? Do tell
Lee, I made mini versions of Nagi’s Crispy baked chicken tenders – we call them Nagi’s nuggets 😂, my fussy toddlers love them!
Nagi I often make your roast veg fritatta into burritos (which freeze beautifully) so love seeing this crustkess quiche get the same treatment. Best of both worlds I reckon. Yum!
Hi Nagi, we don’t eat ham/pork. With recipes like this I always wonder what to use as a substitute to ensure maximum flavour. Could you make any suggestions? Thank you
Smoked Chicken or turkey?
Hi Danielle, how about turkey bacon – it would have a similar smoky flavour 🙂 N x