How to Make a Basic Quiche (With Any Filling)

This basic quiche recipe is easily adjusted for fillings you prefer and will be a hit at your next brunch or lazy weekend breakfast. It's best with a homemade pie crust, but feel free to use a frozen pie crust if you must.

This post includes tips for making parts of the recipe ahead so that all you need to do the next morning is assemble the quiche and bake it off. It's perfect when you have weekend guests.

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Want to make this recipe perfectly the first time? I want to help with that. So, check out this Table of Contents to see which sections of this post will help you the most.

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• 🏃‍♀️ Post Summary
• 🧐 What is a quiche?
• 🧅 Main Ingredients + Notes
• 👩‍🍳 What is the Formula for Making a Quiche?
• 🤫 What's the Secret to a Great Quiche?
• ❌ Top 5 Common Mistakes When Making Quiche
• ⚖️ Ways to Make a Lighter Quiche
• ⏰ Make-Ahead Options to Save Time
• 👩‍🍳 Pro-Tip
• 💡Ideas for Vegetarian Quiche Fillings
• 🥩 Fillings for Omnivores
• 🍽 Side Dish Ideas
• 🙋‍♀️ FAQ
• Basic Quiche Recipe For Any Fillings

Quiche might be one of the best food inventions of all time. It's high in protein and flexible for any fillings you want. Ok maybe not chocolate chips, but big yes to potatoes, onions, broccoli, mushrooms, Hatch chiles, caramelized onions, kale, and Swiss chard. And don't forget the grated cheese.

Two of my favorite ingredients to add are are asparagus for an Asparagus Quiche) and fresh spinach (Quiche Florentine) with a pinch of nutmeg.

🧐 What is a quiche?

A traditional quiche is a French tart made with a buttery crust and filled with a rich savory egg custard made of eggs, cream or milk, cheese, and fillings. Newer versions include crustless quiches and ones using a hash browns crust.

A quiche is unique among other egg bakes including frittatas in that quiches are custards. This means they use a significant amount of dairy, such as heavy cream and whole milk. See the below Formula section for a recommendation of the ratio to use when making any quiche.

The classic Quiche Lorraine originated in the northeastern Lorraine region but various regions in France, particularly those that are near the German border, have their own variations using their own local ingredients.

They are the perfect make-ahead dish for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner and can be served warm, cold, or at room temperature.

👩‍🍳 What is the Formula for Making a Quiche?

Julia Child's formula was to break 3 eggs into a 2 cup measuring cup and add enough dairy to get a total of 1 ½ cups. The dairy can be any combination of heavy cream, half & half, and whole milk. Then add 1 - 1 ½ cups of fillings, and 1 cup of grated cheese.

Many people swear by this formula. And it's true, it makes a beautiful, rich, creamy quiche. Really rich and really creamy. If you assume each large egg is around 2 ounces (¼ cup), that means you'll end up using ¾ cup eggs and ¾ cup cream/milk. Then you add 1 cup of cheese plus your fillings.

I prefer a lighter quiche (comparitively) and use the below ratio of ingredients. It turns out perfect every single time without being too rich.

Formula: 4 large eggs : 1-2 cups cream or milk : 1 cup grated cheese : 2 cups filling.

🤫 What's the Secret to a Great Quiche?

Two things are important to a great quiche:

1. A buttery crust that's goldilocks blind-baked. This means it's baked long enough to prevent a soggy crust when the egg filling is added and then baked, but not so long that it's hard as a rock when you try to take your first bit.
2. A silky, creamy custard filling that's not over-baked.

❌ Top 5 Common Mistakes When Making Quiche

1. Using a poor pre-made pie crust. If you don't make your own pie crust, be sure to use one that's buttery and flavorful. Check out this blind taste of store-bought pie crusts done by Bon Apetit and by TastingTable for some products to consider. Just be sure it's a buttery crust and not one made with added sugar.
2. Not properly chilling the dough. When making your own pie crust, be sure to chill the dough before rolling it out. The butter in the dough softens as you work it into the flour making the finished dough difficult to work with.
3. Skipping the blind-baking step. Thinking it's a good shortcut to skip blind-baking the crust. I promise that you will have a very soggy crust in the end.
4. Using uncooked veggies. Spinach, asparagus, red bell pepper, and tomatoes must all be cooked and cooled before adding to the custard filling.
5. Over-baking. Using too high a temperature when baking the quiche or cooking it for too long.

⚖️ Ways to Make a Lighter Quiche

A traditional quiche has a rich custardy texture that you'll find in France. But you may want something lighter - I know I often do. Here are some egg and milk/cream combinations that provide a lighter texture that I've tried with great success:

• 2 cups heavy cream for the traditional custardy quiche texture.
• 1 cup heavy cream + 1 cup whole milk.
• 1 cup half & half and + 1 cup whole milk.
• Use a 4:1 - 1.5 ratio of eggs to cups of milk/cream. For example, this Lightened Asparagus Quiche uses a 4:1 ratio and this Quiche Florentine uses a ratio of 4 eggs to 1.5 cups of Half & Half.

Once you go with less than 1 cup of milk/cream for every 4 eggs, the dish starts to become more of an egg bake than a custard.

⏰ Make-Ahead Options to Save Time

• Make and blind-bake the crust ahead.
  • If making your own crust, make it the day before, blind bake using pie weights or dry beans, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
• Prep all the filling ingredients ahead.
  • Whisk together the eggs, cream or milk, and grated cheese. Cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days.
  • Pre-cook the veggies you plan to add to the filling, transfer them to an airtight container, and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
  • When ready to bake the quiche, remove the crust, eggs, and filling from the refrigerator and bring to room temperature while the oven preheats. Assemble and bake.
• Make the entire quiche ahead.
  • Completely cool the quiche before covering tightly with plastic wrap. Rewarm in a 350˚F oven or microwave oven when ready to serve.

👩‍🍳 Pro-Tip

For any egg bake that uses 3 or more eggs, always rest it on a cooling rack for 10-15 minutes after baking to allow the eggs to set. This applies to quiches, frittatas, and other egg bakes.

💡Ideas for Vegetarian Quiche Fillings

Here are some flavor combinations that work very well together so you can find your favorite way to quiche.

• Store-bought shredded or diced hash brown potatoes
• Asparagus and shallots
• Broccoli and cheddar cheese
• Sautéed spinach and Gruyere cheese
• Roasted red peppers, mushrooms, and onions
• Sautéed mushrooms and Swiss cheese
• Zucchini and feta cheese (be sure to dry the sautéed zucchini before adding to the eggs so it's not too wet)
• Sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella, and fresh basil

As a final note on fillings, tomatoes can be too wet to add to a quiche unless they're roasted.

🥩 Fillings for Omnivores

All fillings should be cooked before they're folded into the egg mixture. Smoked salmon is considered to be "cooked" and canned crab is generally pre-cooked. Raw crab and shrimp give off too much liquid during the cooking process and the finished quiche will be watery with a strong fishy taste.

• Bacon, sausage, or diced ham
• Chopped sautéed shrimp
• Smoked salmon
• Crab

🍽 Side Dish Ideas

• A classic side dish with any quiche is a simple green salad dressed in a vinaigrette. The acidity of the dressing is a perfect balance to the rich custard of the quiche. A good alternative is peppery arugula with shaved Parmesan cheese dressing in a lemon vinaigrette.
• A fruit salad is an excellent light choice when serving the quiche at breakfast or brunch.
• Roasted or air fryer asparagus is a fabulous side dish in spring when asparagus is at its peak.
• Sautéed or air fryer mushrooms or roasted cherry tomatoes with herbs (especially when finished with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar).
• Glazed carrots or roasted potatoes are nice options when serving the quiche for dinner.

🙋‍♀️ FAQ

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