A tasty idea for Meatless Monday – Green Chile Quiche!
Have you had enough green chile yet? What a silly question!!! For those of you still wondering what to do with all of the green chile you’ve bought or grown, here’s a VERY TASTY idea – Green Chile Quiche with a Pinon (Pine nut) Crust. Everyone is going to love this quiche, even you men that don’t eat quiche. 🙂
The filling for this green chile quiche consists of roasted New Mexico green chile, cilantro, a little onion and garlic, two types of cheese, and, for the bacon lovers, some crispy pieces of slab bacon. If you are vegetarian, just leave out the bacon – it’s still good! The crust is probably the tastiest quiche crust I’ve ever made and has a great texture. It consists of toasted pinon (pine nuts), flour, water and olive oil.
For a complete meal, just add a few slices of fresh tomato. Hope you enjoy!
This quiche celebrates the flavors of New Mexico – its chile and pinon. A crunchy pinon crust yields great texture and flavor to a a cheesy, chile quiche.
“*” See Kitchen Notes for more information or links to special ingredients.
- 3 Tbsp. pinon (pine nuts)
- ¾ cup unbleached AP flour*
- ¼ cup Spelt flour*
- ½ tsp. salt
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup mild tasting olive oil
- 4 ounce slab bacon*, cut into 1/2″ cubes (optional)
- ½ medium onion, chopped
- 4 large garlic cloves, minced
- ½ cup chopped, roasted fresh red or green chile*, well drained/squeezed to remove liquid
- 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro*
- ½ cup ricotta cheese*
- Generous 1/2 cup grated Monterey Jack Cheese
- 4 eggs
- ¾ cup half & half
- ½ cup milk (whole, 2% or skim)
- 1/8 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. mustard powder
- Lightly toast the pinon (pine nuts) in a medium hot skillet.
Chop fine. Transfer to a mixing bowl.
- Add the flours and salt. Whisk together to combine.
- Whisk together the water and oil. Pour into flour/nut mixture and stir to combine.*
- Press into the bottom and along the sides of a pie pan.
- Set in the refrigerator until ready to pour in the filling.
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
If you’re adding bacon, heat a small skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until brown and crispy. Using a slotted spoon, transfer bacon to a papertowel to drain. Pour out all but 1 Tbsp. of the bacon drippings. Reduce heat to medium low. (Skip the next step)
- If you are not using bacon, heat 1 tbsp. olive oil in a small skillet over medium low heat.
- Add the onion and garlic to the skillet and sweat until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. If the garlic starts to brown before the onion is cooked, turn down the heat.
- Egg/Milk mixture – In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the cream, milk, salt, and mustard powder. Whisk until all ingredients are well combined. Set aside.
- Assemble -Add the ingredients to the pie crust in the following order:
Place dollops of ricotta across the bottom of the crust and spread it out a little.
- Top with green chile, then onion/garlic mixture, cilantro, bacon, then the grated Jack cheese.
- Pour the egg/milk mixture into the pie crust.
- Transfer to preheated oven, and bake quiche for 45 – 50 minutes. At 45 minutes test with a toothpick. Stick a toothpick in the middle. If it comes out clean, the quiche is done. If not, bake for another 5 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let rest 5 minutes.
- Serve.
- A great complement to this quiche is a side of fresh tomato slices, lightly salted and drizzled with good quality olive oil.
Flours – If you don’t have spelt flour, just use all unbleached AP flour. If you are on a gluten-free diet, then use whatever GF flours you normally use for crusts.
Making the crust – Chop the pinon as fine as possible. After mixing the dry ingredients with the liquid, you might find the dough too dry or too wet. This is determined by the types of flours you use and environmental factors. If the dough is too dry, add water 1 Tbsp. at a time until it forms a texture that can be pressed into the pie pan. If too wet, add 1 Tbsp. of flour at a time for the right consistency. (NOTE: The pie crust shown in the instructions is from another quiche and does not have the pinon, but you can see how well it pressed into the pie pan.)
Bacon – Cubed slab bacon or crumbled thick cut bacon work best. Crumbled thin bacon gets too soggy during the cooking process. You can usually get slab bacon at a butcher shop.
Roasted chile – For this green chile quiche I used roasted medium hot chile and mild fresh red chile. This combination yielded a spicy, but not “hot” quiche. You can use any type of roasted chile or even roasted sweet bell peppers for a very mild, sweet quiche. If your chiles are mild, feel free to add as much as one cup chile. Just be sure that you drain your roasted chile or peppers. Too much moisture leads to a watery quiche.
Cilantro – If you have the soap gene, then fresh parsley is a good substitute. You could also use dried Mexican oregano, just reduce the amount to 1 tsp.
Ricotta – If you don’t have ricotta, increase the cheese to 1 cup.
For this green chile quiche I used roasted medium hot chile from The Hatch Chile Store and mild fresh roasted red chile from Sichler Farms. The Hatch Chile Store ships roasted, frozen chile year round as well as fresh chile during chile season. Sichler Farms has several chile products you can buy online. During chile season they have a market in Albuquerque where you can purchase fresh chile that is grown in the Rio Grande valley north of San Antonio, New Mexico.
If you enjoyed this quiche, then you will also enjoy my Swiss Chard and Leek Quiche.
For more chile recipes,
If you are interested in buying some fresh New Mexico’s green and/or red chile, autumn is the time of year to do it. Check out these New Mexico Suppliers.
Oh oh oh! This quiche is making my mouth water;) Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Thanks Zaza! It is a very tasty quiche. 🙂
What a perfect quiche! I love the idea of adding pine nuts in the crust and the flavors must have been something else! Pinning!
Thanks Katerina! And thanks for sharing!
I’m a huge quiche fan, and I love the combination of flavors here, and the addition of ricotta. What really got my attention, though, is that crust. YUM! I will have to give this a try… I was fortunate enough to get 6 pounds of lovely green chile from the Hatch Chile Store after being so disappointed that our HEB market didn’t supply the RGV this year!
Thank you so much Tamara! That crust did turn out pretty darn good if I do say so myself. 🙂 I roasted my fifth batch of chile today and my freezer is full. YAY!
I love the idea of a pine nut crust – very creative and it sounds delicious!
Thanks Amy! Except for the chile, the pine nut crust was the highlight of this quiche. 🙂
Yum! That looks fabulous and sounds amazzzing!
Thanks so much Darlin!
This is a wonderful quiche, MJ, but I have to admit its crust really grabbed my attention. Pine nuts? This is an idea whose time has come! I have a few pounds of roasted Hatch chile in my freezer just waiting for a purpose. I think I just found one. Thanks, MJ.
Thanks John! The crust really did elevate this quiche to a whole new level. I hope you get a chance to make it.
I see in the notes you mention red chile, but in the ingredients no red chile is listed. Can you clarify? This sounds wonderful!
Yes, Sandy. The red chile is actually FRESH roasted red chile, not the dried red. I buy my chile fresh red AND green and roast it myself. After reading through the recipe I understand your confusion and will try to correct it. Thank you for pointing it out. Hope this answers your question. Please let me know if it doesn’t.
Mmmmm that looks delish! Can’t wait to try it!
Hope you enjoy! Thanks!
This just looks amazing! I love your chile recipes..
Thanks so much Peachy! I know you don’t get NM chile, but hopefully there are some types of chiles you can use for some of these recipes. Hope you and that beautiful family of yours are doing well.
Oh my goodness MJ, your quiche looks divine… and, lesson learned, no gazing at your favorite food blogs at 4 PM when you haven’t had lunch yet… I want to crawl into my computer right now (or perhaps 3D print the recipe? :d That pine nut crust is a stroke of genius my friend and now that I’ve located hatch chiles, watch out 😮 (I haven’t roasted them yet … I added them to my shrimp recipe raw and they were delightful but I also want to experience the roasted flavor so that’s next). Enjoy the last day of September (eek!) and have a beautiful weekend.
Love your comments as always Ms. Kelly! 🙂 I know what you mean about timing blog surfer correctly. I always surf in the evening AFTER dinner. The problem there is that I want to jump up and make everything for the next day. 🙂
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What a picture perfect quiche. I could seriously eat this for breakfast, lunch and then again for dinner! Pinning this winner!!
Thanks so much Liz! I had the last piece of this one for breakfast the other day. 🙂
I could eat quiche every week. At least! I love this kind of pie and I have made and eaten so many different ones. And still your quiche brings something new: I will make the pine nuts crust the next time I make any quiche. 🙂
I’m with you Adina! I love quiche and I’m so glad my husband does too. 🙂 Thanks!
Chile and quiche! That’s just the combo that I wanted to try. I’m definitely bookmarking this one, thanks for sharing 🙂
Thanks so much Ala! Love finding another chile lover!
As you know, I love chile in everything, but I’ve never thought of putting it into a tart/quiche! It’s such a wonderful idea though! The pine nut crust sounds fantastic and bacon…. heavenly! You give me some nasty ideas of surprising my French chile-hating members of family with a surprise quiche one day 😉 Haha! (Those who are afraid of fiery food are always afraid of the first bit of anything I serve anyway!).
You have chile-hating family members?!?!! Oh, I can’t imagine. How on earth do you cook for them. 🙂 As far as chile in a quiche, since I put it in scrambled eggs all of the time, why not a quiche? Bobby was a little cautious at first but after the first bite, all caution was thrown to the wind. 🙂 Of course you have to know that while I was making this I thought “I wonder what type of chile(ie) Sissi would use in this?” Thanks Darlin!
Luckily some members of my family love chile, so when I often cook for them we are usually half chile lovers and half haters 🙂 I cook two versions of the same dish. (Among my French friends there are also some serious chile lovers).
It’s so kind of you to think about me AND to tell me this…. It warms my heart.
To make two versions of the same dish shows how much you love your family!!! Hey, how can I not think of my chile lover sister when I’m working with chile. 🙂
this is a wonderful far cry from a ho-hum quiche! Full of flavors, a little chile quikc, and wow what a great idea for the crust. Pine nuts sre so amazing.
Thanks Evelyn! That crust holds up really well if you have leftovers. The crust stays crispy, doesn’t get soggy.
My boys are already on me to make this delicious green chili quiche for breakfast this weekend. Roasted hatch chilis, bacon and eggs, what is not to love!!
Well, then you should make it. 🙂 Thanks Bobbi!
If there is one quiche recipe I want to try it’d have to be this one! I haven’t had a green chile quiche but it looks packed with heat and flavor! Thanks for sharing!
Well, that’s a nice things to say. Thanks!!!
Amazing, amazing, amazing….that pinon crust is genius. I will make this later this winter with some of the green chiles I have frozen already.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Hope you enjoy!
This looks so incredibly good, MJ. I love how this crust sounds too – I might make it this week. I love having quiche and a salad for dinner!
Thanks so much Susan! I hope you do get a chance to make it. I love quiche and salad for dinner as well. Of course with all of the fresh tomatoes we have right now, our salads are slices of tomatoes with a touch of sea salt. 🙂
I’ve never been much interested in the exploring the fresh chile options locally … I pick up jalapenos occasionally to put in corn bread. Sometimes they’re hot and sometimes really mild. I’ve never used them in quiche but I bet they’d be tasty.
And I love pine nuts but usually for pesto and added to brown butter sauces to dress pasta. They sound like a great addition to pie crusts though I’d be tempted to use them for sweet tarts. I once made pine nut brittle too. Amazing.
I’ve had pine nut brittle before and yes, it is amazing! Adding pinon to the crust for sweet tarts sounds like a great idea. I’ll have to remember that! Thanks for the comments!
Thanks for a recipe that I can alter for our Primal diet! I will use a nut flour in the crust, as Ivan and I don’t eat grains. It sounds like a great recipe to play around with different cheeses, for fun flavors.
Thanks Crista! Oh yes, this crust can easily be made with GF flours and as with all quiches, mixing up cheeses it always fun. 🙂 How are things in your new home!
I’ve frozen some roasted Hatch chilies for a special recipe. The vibrant quiche with a pine nut crust would be a fantastic way to enjoy my stash!
I totally agree!! Thanks Darlin!
The crust looks spectacular. Heck, the whole dish looks spectacular! Never had Hatch chilies in quiche. In fact it’s been ages since I’ve made quiche, and now you have me craving it! Really good dish — I’ll bet the flavor of this is wonderful. Thanks!
Thanks so very much John! This is definitely a very wonderful tasting quiche. Hope you get to make it!
I love that you added pine nuts in the crust…and green chile quiche is something I have always wanted to try..this looks simply marvelous!
Thanks so much Angie! The pine nuts really created a very tasty crust. I’ll be trying that again on other quiche.