5-Ingredient Easy Ham and Cheddar Cheese Quiche
This 5-ingredient quiche combines light pastry and savory egg filling to create your new brunch favorite! Don’t let the fancy French name fool you — this easy quiche recipe is simple to make and tastes delicious.
Quiche has been a staple of French cuisine for some time, and once you taste it, you’ll know why. That combination of buttery, flaky crust and rich egg filling just feels like a luxury trip for the taste buds.
The fun thing about this recipe, though, is that you don’t have to travel thousands of miles or study under some grumpy French chef to enjoy that deliciousness. All you need is 5 ingredients, about 10 minutes of prep time, and an oven! You can impress your friends by serving this at just about any meal. In France, it’s mostly eaten at lunch, but here in America, we love it for breakfast and brunch. Heck, you can even serve mini quiches as an appetizer!
What’s in homemade quiche?
The base ingredients for this are stuff you probably already have in your fridge or pantry. It’s a budget-friendly way to enjoy the finer things in life!
- Pre-made Pie Crust: Pre-made crusts are the secret to making this a breeze. While homemade pie crust can be rather difficult to master, if you’re already good at it, you can use your favorite recipe for pie dough. I love this one!
- Eggs: You will need 3 whole, large eggs for this recipe. The filling of a quiche is made from an egg custard, so we’ll need both the yolks and the whites to provide richness and structure!
- Whole Milk or Heavy Cream: I use whole milk for my quiche, but if you want the richest quiche possible, nothing beats heavy cream. The cream will give you a thicker egg filling, which some people much prefer!
- Cheddar Cheese: While this recipe uses cheddar cheese to make a ham and cheese quiche, you can really use just about any cheese you’d like. I love sharp cheddar, but gruyere cheese, swiss cheese, and mozzarella cheese are all fantastic.
- Diced Ham: You can get packages of diced ham from the store, which is convenient and quick. This recipe also works with chopped deli meat ham, or even leftover ham.
Making 5-Ingredient Quiche
Step 1 | The Crust
Start by unrolling your store-bought pie crust and placing it in the pan. If you use a standard depth 9 inch pie plate like this one, your crust will be a little bigger than the plate. You can roll the extra under to create a thick edge.
To get that cut crimping, just use two fingers on one hand to press the dough around one finger from the other hand. This video shows you the technique in action.
I don’t blind bake my crust (bake it before you put the filling in). If you choose to, you can follow the instructions on the package for how long to blind bake. Make sure to use pie weights or dry beans if you choose to do this!
Step 2 | Make the Filling
The secret to a good quiche filling is to make a delicious egg custard. You’ll whisk your egg and milk/cream together in a large bowl until it’s complete smooth. I like to season with pepper here. The ham is salty enough that I don’t add any extra salt.
Step 4 | Fill the Pie Crust
When I used to make quiche, I’d mix the filling ingredients into the egg mixture. This meant that it would all sink to the bottom, and I’d have a layer of egg sitting on a layer of ham and cheese.
The secret is layer! Take your 1/2 your shredded cheddar and spread it around the bottom of the pan. Then, add 1/2 your ham on top. Last, repeat both layers. This will keep all your ham from sinking to the bottom.
Once you’ve layered your filling, you can pour the egg mixture over the top.
Step 5 | Bake and Serve!
Bake your quiche for 45-50 minutes at 350°. You can tell it’s done when the crust is golden brown and the egg filling stops jiggling.
Your quiche will need to cool for 15-20 minutes to finish setting. Once it’s set, you can cut it into individual slices and garnish it. I love green onions, parsley, and fresh cracked black pepper!
Tips
- If you like a denser quiche, you can add an extra egg!
- To keep the crust from getting too browned, you can cover just the edges with aluminum foil.
How to Make Mini Quiches
You can make mini quiches from this recipe! Just roll your pie dough out and use a circular cookie cutter to cut round from the dough.
Then, press those rounds into a muffin tin. Make the filling as in the original recipe, and simply split it among the mini quiches.
Bake your quiches at 350° for 20-25 minutes, or until the egg filling is set.
Variations
The lovely thing about most quiche recipes is that they come from the same base recipe. With just a few substitutions, you can create tons of delicious flavor options!
- Quiche Lorraine: Replace the diced ham with chopped bacon, and the cheddar cheese with gruyère to create this French classic!
- Quiche Florentine: Replace the diced ham with chopped spinach and the cheddar with swiss cheese and you’ve got the Florentine version.
- Vegetarian Quiche: Instead of using diced ham, chop and sauté a medley of your favorite vegetables.
- Easy Broccoli Cheddar Quiche: I’m sure you see where this is going: replace your diced ham with chopped broccoli florets to make yet another variation.
FAQs
Yes, quiche can be made ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator for 1-2 days before serving. You can reheat it in the oven at a low temperature until warmed through.
No. The texture of the thawed quiche is weirdly grainy. I don’t recommend it.
Quiche actually started as a German word, kuchen, meaning cake, before being adopted by the people of the Alsace region of France. They pronounced kuchen the French way, which resulted in the word changing to quiche!
The short answer is yes! Quiche can be eaten both hot or cold, which makes it perfect for making ahead for an easy meal prep breakfast!
Ingredients
- 1 pre-made pie crust
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/2 cup milk
- 1 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- 1 1/2 cup diced ham
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°.
- Spread the pie crust out, then place in a pie pan.
- Beat the eggs and milk together.
- Layer the ham and cheese in the pie crust, then pour the egg mixture over the top.
- Bake the quiche at 350° for 45-50 minutes, or until the filling has set.
- Allow the quiche to cool for 15-20 minutes, then serve!
