Chorizo, Kale, And Pepper Quiche Recipe

If you really want to show someone you care about them, make them a quiche. Better yet, make them a deep dish quiche. One of the most impressive brunch foods out there, a quiche is known for being both tricky and time consuming. A good quiche is fluffy, smooth, and rich, like a savory custard with a crispy crust. Achieving that, especially in a springform pan, requires some kitchen prowess and a lot of patience. Between kneading together the dough, blind baking the crust, shredding cheese, making the filling, and adding the egg, a quiche is an all-day affair — but, a good one is worth the effort.

This rich and creamy deep dish quiche recipe written with developer Michelle McGlinn is a powerhouse of flavor. Not only is the star ingredient crumbly, spicy chorizo, but the egg filling is also loaded up with peppers, kale, and plenty of cheese. For an added kick of spice, we use pepper jack cheese, which complements the spice of the meaty chorizo. Though the deep-dish quiche requires a few hours to prep and cook, it's easier than it appears and can be made ahead of time for a breakfast that shows up on the table almost like magic.

For the crust, you'll just need flour, salt, and butter. For the filling, you'll need to saute vegetables, so you will first need oil. The vegetables you'll need to grab include garlic, onion, kale, and two bell peppers. We opted for red and green, but you can choose any bell peppers that you prefer. From there, you'll need Mexican chorizo, which is sold in links and crumbles like ground beef (unlike Spanish chorizo, which is cured and is eaten in slices). The rest of the ingredients make up the eggy custard part of the filling: You'll need eggs, whole milk, heavy whipping cream, salt, pepper, and both Monterey jack and pepper jack cheeses.

Start making the crust: Add the flour and salt to a food processor and pulse to combine.

Add the butter and pulse until the butter is broken down into pea-sized pieces.

Add ¾ cup cold water and pulse until the dough comes together.

Remove from the processor and knead using your hands. Form the dough into a disc, wrap it in plastic, and chill for at least 10 minutes and up to overnight.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll it to ⅛-inch thickness.

Press the dough into a 9-inch springform pan and trim the excess.

Place a piece of parchment into the pan, then fill the pan with pie weights or beans.

Place in the oven and bake until golden, about 1 hour.

In the meantime, prepare the filling. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat.

Add the onion and bell peppers and saute until softened, about 5 minutes.

Add the chorizo and crumble, then brown for 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the garlic and kale and cook until the kale is wilted and the garlic is fragrant, about 2 minutes. Season with ½ teaspoon each salt and pepper, and remove from the heat.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs until smooth.

Whisk in the milk, heavy cream, remaining ½ teaspoon salt, and remaining ½ teaspoon pepper until smooth.

Remove the pie weights or beans and parchment from the quiche shell. Add ½ cup of each cheese to the quiche shell.

Add the chorizo mixture on top of the cheeses.

Pour in the egg mixture, being careful not to overfill.

Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the egg mixture.

Place the quiche on a sheet tray.

Turn the oven down to 350 F.

Carefully add the quiche to the oven and bake until set but still jiggly, or when the internal temperature registers 160 F, about 80 to 90 minutes.

Let the quiche cool for 15 to 20 minutes before slicing and serving.

Blind baking, par-baking, and pre-baking are all terms associated with pie and quiche crusts. While mostly interchangeable, there is a small difference between each, and it has to do with how long you cook the crust. A blind baked crust is baked all the way through and is ready to eat. A par or pre-baked crust, on the other hand, is only baked until the bottom is set, then filled and cooked longer with the filling inside. Usually, a blind-baked crust is used for no-bake fillings like lemon meringue, but it can be used for deep dish quiche, as well — in fact, you shouldn't skip this step, because it's one of the most crucial to a perfect, crispy quiche.

Unfortunately, this crucial step is a long 60 minutes in the oven, which makes this recipe feel impossible for early-morning breakfasts. The secret? Everything can be made ahead of time, especially the golden-brown crust. The dough can be made up to two or three days in advance and then baked and stored as an empty shell in the refrigerator for an additional one to two days. If you need even more time, just freeze it: A blind-baked crust will last in the freezer for up to three months.

A deep dish quiche is a stunning, towering display of custard and cooked filling, and it's as filling as it is impressive. The impressive appearance comes at a cost, though, and that is your time, materials, and effort. A deep dish quiche is about twice the size, heightwise, as a classic quiche, meaning that you are using twice the amount of each ingredient and baking the quiche for almost twice as long.

To make this quiche in a standard 9-inch pie shell, you can follow a recipe for a quiche of that size, or simply cut this recipe in half and use visual cues to cook the quiche. For example, make half of the crust recipe as written, the roll it out thin and press it into the 9-inch pie shell. Fill with your pie weights and bake until golden, checking in at about 20 minutes instead of 60. From there, soften half of the vegetables, cook half of the chorizo, and shred half of the cheese (or leave the cheese as-is for an extra gooey quiche). Finally, use half the amount of eggs, cream, and milk and pour the mixture into the quiche. Bake until jiggly but set, or 165 F. This will take less time than the tall deep dish version, so begin checking the egg texture around 30 minutes.