Our family loves quiche! If you love eggs, sausage, cheese in a wonderful pie crust, you’ll love this dish. It also sneaks some veggies in! It’s so tasty though that your picky eaters won’t even fuss about the spinach in the dish! It’s fairly easy to make and since the pie shells come in a two pack, I usually go ahead and double the recipe making 2 quiches. These freeze great, so I’ll make two and freeze one for a quick dinner on another night.
On this particular night, my 17 year old daughter was our chef doing the cooking. She also made my recipe for Hawaiian Sweet Bread to accompany our quiche.
Quiche is a great dish for breakfast, lunch, brunch or dinner! On a few occasions, we’ve hosted a brunch for Mother’s Day. This quiche was a perfect dish for such a brunch and was very well received.
In the following recipe, I’ve given some tips on how to reduce the fat and calories. In a previous blog post, I shared a method for cutting additional fat and calories by replacing the pie crust with shredded potatoes.
Spinach and Sausage Quiche
1 frozen deep dish pastry shell
8 oz bulk pork sausage (I use the light Jimmy Dean sausage)
¼ cup green onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced or pressed
½ (10 oz) package frozen chopped spinach, cooked, and drained well
½ cup herb-seasoned stuffing mix (I use Stove Top)
1 ½ cups Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (6 oz)
3 eggs, slightly beaten (Egg substitute also works well)
1 ½ cups half and half (I use fat free)
2 tbsp parmesan cheese, grated
Paprika
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Let frozen pastry shell stand at room temperature for 10 minutes, do not puncture the pastry shell. Bake 7 minutes. Remove from oven, set aside. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees. In a medium skillet, cook sausage, green onions and garlic over medium-high heat until sausage is done, stirring occasionally, breaking sausage into small pieces. Drain sausage mixture. Stir in spinach and stuffing mix. Sprinkle first cheese and then sausage mixture into the pastry shell. In a medium bowl, combine eggs and half and half with a whisk or fork until mixed well but not frothy. Pour egg mixture over sausage mixture in the pastry shell. Bake 35 minutes. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and paprika. Bake 20 minutes or until knife inserted off-center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Makes 3-5 servings.