Here's an easy quiche recipe that I make all the time for ski trips. It freezes well, so I'll make it ahead of time and then defrost overnight in the fridge, and warm it up on a non-stick frying pan or oven for ski mornings at Tahoe.
It features a hash brown crust with a ham, cheese and onion egg filling, but you can vary the meat and veggies as you please. I just happen to like the ham and caramelized onion flavor combination. But sausage and peppers, or bacon and mushrooms works really well too!
Give it a try!
It's one of my all time favorite make ahead breakfasts.
Recipe adapted from an old recipe on All Recipes.com that I printed out years and years ago.
Yields 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients:
- 4 Russet potatoes, peeled and grated (about 3 cups grated)
- ½ t salt
- 3 T melted butter
- 8 eggs
- ½ c half and half
- ½ c water
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 1 ½ c diced ham
- 1 T dried chopped onions
- 2 T chopped green onions for garnish
- 1 c shredded cheese (any kind you like, cheddar, pepper jack, or monterey jack)
Procedures:
1. In a pan, saute the onions on medium heat until translucent and slightly caramelized. Allow to cool.
2. Preheat oven to 425 F
3. Add melted butter to an oven safe 8 x 12 inch casserole dish, and swirl around the dish until all the sides and bottom of the pan are coated. Set aside.
4. Grate the potatoes. Mix in ½ t salt to the potatoes, and then squeeze out as much water from the potatoes as possible. Press the hash browns onto the bottom and sides of the buttered casserole dish, and bake in a preheated oven for 20 to 30 min, or until beginning to slightly brown on the edges.
5. While the hash browns are baking, in a bowl, combine the eggs, half and half, water, ham, dried chopped onions and sauted onions. (Make sure the onions are cooled down before adding to the eggs to prevent cooking the eggs prematurely. Also, the ham is quite salty already, so there is no need to add salt to the egg mixture. If you are not using ham and your meat of choice is not very salty, add a pinch of salt to the egg mixture.) Set egg mixture aside until hash brown crust is ready.
6. When the crust is ready, take it out of the oven and lower the oven temperature to 350 F.
7. Spread the shredded cheese on the bottom. (This helps to create a barrier between the crust and egg mixture so that the crust crisps up a bit more.) Then cover the cheese layer with the egg, ham and onion mixture. Garnish the top with the chopped green onions.
8. Bake for 60 minutes at 350 F, or until the filling is set, puffed and golden brown.
9. Allow quiche to cool slightly before serving. Alternatively, cool to room temperature and cut into 8 serving size pieces and freeze for later. Just defrost and warm in an oven or non-stick pan prior to serving.