The mother of all quiches…. A homemade Quiche Lorraine is one of those things reserved for special occasions that puts store bought to shame. Surprise yourself with how easy it is to make a homemade quiche crust – or make life easy using frozen pastry or a pre prepared pie crust.
QUICHE LORRAINE – QUEEN OF ALL QUICHES!
I can’t remember when I made my first quiche, but I can tell you for sure that it was a Quiche Lorraine. Because just as Pork Carnitas are the King of Taco Carts, Quiche Lorraine is surely the Queen of all savoury tarts.
Bacon. Surely it’s the bacon. I mean, how could a Zucchini Quiche possibly ever compete? 😉
Did you know…
This is not a REAL Quiche Lorraine. This is Quiche Lorraine as it is known outside of France. 🙂
As with many traditional dishes, once it leaves the country of origin, it tends to evolve. The filling for traditional Quiche Lorraine, very strictly speaking, is made only with bacon, eggs and cream/creme fraiche. If you add anything else to it, the French say it ain’t a Quiche Lorraine anymore! 😂
So basically, I break the rules and the French may be cursing me. But this is the Quiche Lorraine flavour that will be familiar to those who live outside of France, that I have always known and loved.
The onion adds more savoury flavour. I can’t help adding garlic to that – because when I sauté onion in butter, I add garlic like I’m on auto pilot.
As for adding cheese… I truly cannot image quiche without cheese. I have never had quiche without cheese!
QUICHE PASTRY
The pastry for quiche is a simple shortcrust pastry that is buttery and crumbly, crispy yet soft enough to cut your fork through without the needing to jack hammer it.
If you are lacking in time, use a pre prayed pie crust or frozen shortcrust pastry.
But if you do have the time, it is truly worth making the effort to make your own pastry. Homemade quiche pastry is buttery and flaky in a way that store bought never will be.
And the thing is – it’s so darn easy using a food processor. The dough comes together in mere minutes – flour, butter, salt, water, blitz = ball of soft dough ready for baking.
After chilling. 🙂 Chill = butter in dough firms up again = the flaky quiche crust you know and love.
It’s really hard to capture how buttery and flaky the homemade shortcrust pastry is in a photo, but here’s my attempt. 🙂 The pastry is crispy yet soft enough for the fork to cut through with barely any effort. Just as shortcrust pastry should be!
So here is my Quiche Lorraine recipe. There have been minor improvements since I first published it, streamlining the steps and explaining them more clearly. Most notably, the addition of a recipe video which I hope shows how simply the homemade quiche crust is to make, and how beautifully custardy the filling is!
Happy weekend everyone! A great one for a brunch? With……QUICHE?? 😉 Oh…and I believe Mother’s Day is around the corner… 🤔 – Nagi x
PS Pictured below with this Kale and Quinoa Salad which I happened to have in the fridge because it’s one of the few salads I know that keeps well for days and days.
MORE GREAT BRUNCH RECIPES
- Frittata
- Spanish Tortilla (egg and potato omelette)
- Bill Grangers’ Corn Fritters
- Zucchini Fritters and Broccoli Fritters
- Hash Brown Crust Quiche Lorraine
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Quiche Lorraine
Ingredients
- 1 quiche crust, homemade or store bought (see separate recipe below)
Bacon Filling:
- 1 tbsp / 15g butter
- 1 garlic clove , minced
- 1/2 onion, finely chopped (~1/2 cup)
- 200 g / 6.5 oz bacon, cut into small strips (1.5 x 0.5cm / 2/3" x 1/5")
Egg Mixture
- 4 eggs (~55- 65g / 2 oz each)
- 300ml / 1 1/4 cups heavy cream (thickened cream) (Note 1)
- Pinch of salt & pepper
Cheese:
- 1 1/4 cups / 150g grated gruyere cheese (or tasty, cheddar, monterey jack)
Garnish (optional):
- 50g / 2 oz bacon, chopped and cooked until golden
Instructions
- Make the quiche crust per the separate recipe below (also see video) or use frozen shortcrust pastry (recipe below) or a store bought pre cooked prepared pie crust.
- Preheat oven to 200C/390F (standard) or 180C/350F (fan / convection).
Bacon Filling:
- Melt butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add onion, garlic and bacon. Cook until bacon is light golden.
- Transfer to a paper towel lined bowl and leave to cool.
Egg Mixture:
- Place ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine.
Assembling and Baking:
- Scatter cooled Bacon Filling evenly across base of cooked quiche crust.
- Scatter cheese evenly across top.
- Carefully pour Egg mixture over the top. Push some of the cheese/bacon below the surface.
- Bake for 35 - 40 minutes until the top is golden. The centre should still jiggly.
- Garnish with Extra Bacon, if using. Rest for 10 minutes before removing from the pan to cut and serve.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition
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Quiche Crust
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups / 185g plain white flour (all purpose flour)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 100 g / 7 tbsp unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1cm/ 1/3" cubes
- 2 1/2 tbsp ice cold water (+ more as required)
Instructions
- Place flour, salt and butter in a food processor.
- Pulse 10 times or until it looks like breadcrumbs.
- With the motor running on low, pour 2.5 tbsp of water into the tube feeder.
- Turn up to high and blitz for 30 seconds or until it turns into a ball of dough. Initially it will look like breadcrumbs, then it will turn into a ball of soft dough - some random escaped bits is fine. If it doesn't look like its coming together at 20 seconds, add another 1/2 tbsp of water. Don't blitz longer than 30 seconds at most.
- Form a disc, wrap in cling wrap. If there are escaped crumble bits, that's fine - just press them in. Refrigerate for 1 - 3 hours.
- Preheat oven to 200C/390F (standard) or 180C/350F (convection / fan forced)
- Sprinkle work surface with flour, unwrap dough and place on the flour. Sprinkle top with flour, then roll out into a 27cm/11" round.
- Gently roll the pastry so it wraps around the rolling pin.
- Unroll it over the quiche pan - 23cm / 9".
- Press the pastry into the edges of the quiche pan, patching up edges if required (if pastry doesn't quite reach top of rim).
- Place a large piece of parchment paper over the pastry, then fill with baking beads or lots of rice or dried beans to weight it down (stops base from puffing up and helps reduce pastry shrinkage).
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Use excess paper to CAREFULLY remove hot beads from quiche pan, then return to oven for 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven when light golden and proceed with Quiche Lorraine recipe above. The pastry will not be fully cooked but it finishes cooking with the filling. It's cooked enough so the crust will not go soggy.
Recipe Notes:
Originally published August 2016, updated with new photos, slightly better filling and most importantly, a recipe video!
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
LIFE OF DOZER
Giving me those “pity” eyes….no Quiche for Dozer!
Made this and it is the BEST! Love everything you do, you are the Awesome at what you do. Thank you for helping so many of us find our cooking side.
Hi Nagi,
I was going to try this recipe, but i was wondering if i could add asparagus to it?
Hi Jasmine! You absolutely can but because asparagus has water inside, the water leeches a bit during the bake time. It’s not a deal killer, but it does leave a small ring of imperfect custard around the asparagus, especially on the surface. But it looks amazing! Let me upload a photo of one I made so you can see 🙂 N x
Here’s the photo! I love how it looks. I also put asparagus in the quiche too – that’s where you get a tiny bit of splitting around the asparagus because of the water coming out. But it’s really not a big deal! https://www.recipetineats.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Aspargus-Quiche.jpg