Summer Garden Quiche

Enjoy an easy-to-make Summer Garden Quiche loaded with leftover vegetables from a week of meals, black forest ham, and cheeses for a delightful breakfast or brunch.

The quiche offers a tender egg and milk pie loaded with your favorite, on-hand vegetables, cheese, and even a little ham, that comes together to create a beautiful quiche with a tender, buttery, flaky crust.

When cooking meals for the week, I often find myself with extra vegetables. For the scrap pieces, I just throw them in the compost bin or save for vegetable broth, but there are usually some really good pieces that I like to save up for quiche. It’s actually pretty fantastic having a variety of veggies available, which is why this Summer Garden Quiche is a great go-to to use up those extra veggies.

What is also great about this, is your quiche can be different each time depending on the vegetables you have available.

For this crusted Summer Garden Quiche I had squash and zucchini leftover from making Spring Stewed Squash and Tomatoes, a few sprigs of asparagus from dinner the night before, and I always have onions and spinach on-hand. I also only had a few pieces of deli ham and leftover cheese mix from making baked mac n cheese.

I think you can see the theme of this veggie quiche is somewhat of a Farmer’s Market dish, using what you have on hand. No waste is the best way to go!

What Ingredients for a Garden Quiche recipe?

• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 cup shredded cheese (I used shredded sharp cheddar and Gruyere, also parmesan)
• spinach
• squash and zucchini
• sauteed onions
• asparagus tips
• tomatoes
• premade pie crust

I love this type of recipe because you get to be creative and have fun. If I’m making a single flavor quiche I would mix the ingredients into the egg and milk mixture. But because I wanted to make a quiche that both myself and Josh would like, I decided to make this quiche a little divided. Meaning, I have a few different flavors combos for each quarter of the quiche. Moreso the cheeses.

For this quiche, I placed my veggies, cheeses, and ham after pouring the egg mix into the crust. I then layered in the ingredients.

For example, one-quarter of the quiche was just spinach, tomato, and parmesan cheese. Another section was American cheese, asparagus, ham, tomato. And the other two had the cheddar and gruyere cheeses with a variety of the remaining veggies and sauteed onions.

Setting up a quiche this way makes for a beautiful garden appearance. I got a little fancy and cut grooves into the sides of the squash and zucchini to appear as flowers and used the asparagus to look like the stem. So again.. get creative! It’s super fun and you’ll be delighted with a dish that looks like a scene from the garden.

How to make a quiche with garden vegetables

Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Lightly butter your baking pie dish, then unroll the pie crust onto the dish. Form the edges of the crust however you prefer.

Prepare your vegetables.

• For the squash and zucchini, slice into rings and place on a paper towel or kitchen towel with a sprinkle of salt. This is to help remove excess moisture, as these tend to be quite watery and may water down your quiche. Be sure to pat dry before using. You can use your creativity to shape the squash rings into a flower.
• Sauté half an onion and set aside.
• Cut asparagus down to size. You can use any extra asparagus pieces to add to the egg mixture, and then use the tips for the decorative part or roast separately for a snack.
• Slice the tomatoes. You can also chop a few pieces to add to the egg mixture.
• For the ham: roll the deli slices and then cut to make little ringlets

More breakfast recipes to check out!

• Harvest Multi-Grain Waffles
• Lemon Blueberry Scones
• Peaches and Cream Strudel

Egg Mixture

Combine the eggs, milk, heavy cream, salt and pepper together and pour into the pie crust. Sprinkle the cheeses into the sections that want to be different.

Strategically place your ingredients in the egg mixture to form a beautiful garden display. The smaller pieces and extra veggies can be added first and then the larger “display” vegetables may be layered on top for affect. The veggies may appear to sink down into the egg and milk mixture, but no worries. Once the quiche begins to bake they will rise to the top.

This is great as there is no need to pre cook the asparagus. While it cooks it will roast and have a nice crisp texture. I like to ensure this by tossing the asparagus in a little bit of olive oil before adding to the quiche.

Once the garden quiche is assembled place in the preheated oven and bake for about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to rest about 15 minutes before serving. The quiche deflate and settle.

Note it is important to prepare your vegetables to retain as little amount of water as possible. If needed, remove the seeds from the squash and use a towel to squash the extra moisture.

Also, if you’re not going for the appearance, feel free to combine the ingredients in the egg mixture first before adding to the pie crust. I enjoy the garden look this quiche offers, but also that each slice has a different flavor!

How to freeze quiche

After the quiche has completely cooled after baking, slice into individual servings. Wrap each piece in wax paper and again in foil or in a freezer safe bag.

To reheat quiche from frozen, remove the foil and wax paper and set on a cookie sheet (or said foil) and reheat in a preheated 350 oven for about 15 minutes, or heated thoroughly.

I hope you enjoy this Summer Garden Quiche with ham and cheeses. Serve it for breakfast or brunch, at your next gathering, and make a back up to freeze for later.

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Summer Garden Quiche

Recipe by Dianna Dyer – Ladle and GrainCourse: Breakfast, Lunch, BrunchCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

8

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Cooking time

45

minutes

This easy-to-make Summer Garden Quiche is loaded with leftover vegetables from a week of meals, deli black forest ham, and cheeses for a delightful breakfast or brunch.

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs
  

• 1/2 cup heavy cream

• 1/2 cup whole milk

• 1/2 cup sharp cheddar, shredded

• 1/2 cup Gruyere

• 1/4 cup grated parmesan

• 1 cup spinach

• 1/3 zucchini, sliced

• 1/3 yellow squash, sliced

• 1 small roma tomato, sliced

• 1/2 small onion, caramelized

• 1/2 cup asparagus tips

• 1 premade pie crust, thawed

• 4 ounces deli black forest ham, chopped

Directions

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Spread a little butter on pie dish or spray with non-stick spray.* Place the pie crust in the dish and pinch the crust how you like.
• Prepare veggies, deli meat, and cheeses.
• In a large measuring cup or small bowl, whisk together eggs, heavy cream, milk, and salt and pepper (to taste).
• Pour mixture into pie crust.
• DESIGN YOUR GARDEN-SCAPE. Assemble the summer garden quiche how you like.
• Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until center is cooked through and quiche is golden brown. Serve with a salsa and sliced avocado.

Notes

• *Instead of butter or spray, use parchment paper. The butter is to add extra flavor to the crust but is not necessary.
• Substitute any veggie or cheese. This vegetable quiche with ham can be adjusted to your taste.