Do you love asparagus? Spring means asparagus at our house. We love it just about any way we can get it–raw with dip, in pasta or green salads, or lightly steamed and sprinkled with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. One of our all-time favorite ways to enjoy asparagus is baked up crunchy-tender in a delicate egg-and-cream custard quiche–an Easter or Mother’s Day brunch delight!
Asparagus, sweet yellow onion and fresh dill help make this Easter brunch quiche extra delicious
Make it extra special with a dill-infused pastry shell
For this quiche, I bake my pastry shell from scratch using this whole wheat pie crust recipe, and adding fresh, snipped dill to the flour mixture for an extra little taste sensation. Baking my own crust adds about forty-five minutes to the overall time. It sure is worth it.
How much dill? I snip until I have about a teaspoon. Then I whisk it into the flour mixture before adding the liquid. Those little hits of dill in the pastry give a subtle, but piquant dimension to the overall flavors of the dish.
Snipping dill to add to the pie crust flour mixture
Serve with fresh spring greens or a simple side of fruit
For a casual at-home brunch or take-along lunch, this quiche is lovely served plain with a few slices of sweet Fiji and tart Granny Smith apples. For a fun Mother’s Day brunch, we dress it up a bit with with a side of spring greens, preferably some that have a few flower blossoms in them, drizzled with raspberry or pomegranate vinaigrette.
No matter how we serve it, quite often I top it off with our favorite 5-Minute creamy cheese dip and sauce and a little dill for garnish, which came in handy today when I scorched our Easter quiche. I forgot to set the timer after removing the pie ring! Fortunately, that little bit of scorching only seemed to enhance the rich flavor.
So here’s a little grandmotherly advice from a cook who’s goofed up plenty in the kitchen: Always take your cooking and baking mistakes in stride and laugh them off. Enjoy the food anyway, unless you’ve ruined it. Then order in. Ha!
Asparagus quiche recipe with dill-laced whole wheat crust
Our slightly scorched asparagus quiche and orange slices–Easter brunch 2016
Keep this one simple. Let the asparagus and custard shine in their savory, dill-infused pastry, with a simple fresh, mini salad of fruit or greens, even microgreens.
Ingredients:
- 9″ Par-baked whole wheat pie shell
- 1/2 lb Artisan semi-hard cheese, such as Robusto Gouda Uniekaasr or Valais Raclette
- 1 Bunch fresh organic asparagus spears, about 1/2 lb
- 1/3 C Yellow onion, finely chopped
- 4 Lg Eggs
- 1-1/4 C Half and half
- 1/8 t Ground white pepper
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350º F.
- Prepare a bowl of ice water large enough to hold a second smaller bowl. Slice each asparagus spear down the middle and reserve three pieces for garnish. Cutting on a slight diagonal, slice the remaining spears into half-inch pieces. Saute lightly in water over medium-high heat to caramelize slightly. Remove from pan to a cold bowl, preferably steel, and place over icy water in the larger bowl.
- Meanwhile, prepare the custard. With wire whisk, beat eggs till lightly colored but not frothy. Whisk in half and half and pepper. Now is a good time to chop the onion and grate the cheese, if you don’t have pre-chopped and grated on hand.
- Combine the cooled, sauteed asparagus with the onion and fold the grated cheese into the vegetables. Gently scrape vegetables and cheese into the par-baked pie shell.
- Reserve 2 teaspoons custard mixture and drizzle rest over vegetables and cheese. Brush crust edges lightly with reserved custard.
- Cover crust lightly with a pie ring and bake at 350° F for 25 minutes. Remove the pie ring, decorate the top with the three reserved asparagus halves and return quiche to oven for 10 minutes more, baking until custard is mostly firm and starting to brown ever so slightly on top. The center may be a bit jiggly.
- Remove to cooling rack and let rest 10-15 minutes before cutting, if you can stand it. The custard will continue to cook a bit and will set a little firmer.
Serve with a combination of fresh sweet and tart apple slices, fruit salad, or dress it up a little with fresh spring greens and a light raspberry or pomegranate vinaigrette. Refrigerate any leftovers. Leftovers, if you’re lucky enough to have them, make a wonderful easy-to-pack lunch or breakfast on the run.
This is a YayYay’s Kitchen original recipe. Please link back to this page if you base a recipe of your own on this one.
Tell us about your favorite quiche recipe
If you have a favorite quiche recipe you’d care to share, link to it here. Have you tried it with a whole wheat crust? I encourage you to do so. Quiches and whole wheat pastry shells taste fantastic together.
♥ ♥ ♥
Dear Readers: If you think you’ve seen this recipe before, you may well have. In March 2014, as a writer on the now-defunct site Squidoo, I first published this recipe under the user name graceonline. In August 2014, HubPages, where I am known as ecogranny, bought Squidoo. I opted to have my Squidoo pages, including this recipe, transferred to the new site. Now, in March 2016, I’ve brought it home–to YayYay’s Kitchen.
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This quiche looks tasty and delicious. Thanks for sharing. Stumbled and Pinned.
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Ah, thank you!
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This quiche looks amazing and has all the right flavors! You had me at dill laced crust! Yes please! Happy Spring!
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Thank you, Andrea. A pleasure seeing you here.
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Your recipe seems delicious !! I want to try … Must find asparagus 😉
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When I was a kid, we went out every spring and picked it from the ditch banks. Of course, with all the pesticides, we couldn’t do that today.
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Looks de, icious, as usual. Asparagus is my favourite veggie; just one more reason to anticipate spring.
Along with your tip: don’t point out the goof-ups. Odds are, only the cook notices them (unless they are of the “order in” calibre, of course!
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Yes, I suppose I shouldn’t, but I always have my grandkids in the back of my mind, and myself as a young mom learning to cook. I want the children, and whole-food-cooking newbies, to know that mistakes don’t mean failure and that everyone makes them, how to handle them gracefully, or if not with grace, then with humor. Do you think I err in this? Or that there might be a better way?
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No. It’s good to do it all with humour! You are too right to teach the kidlets (and the rest of us) that we all make mistakes. I, too often, get my knickers in a twist when cooking for others. I want it to be perfect! Gotta let that go.
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I want it to be perfect too. I’ve struggled with that in all areas of my life, but it only hinders. I can imagine the pressure on a professional chef like yourself.
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Ha! Nothing professional about this girl!
I suppose my initial comment was meant more of a note that we should all chillax a bit more about our ‘mistakes’ in that, odds are, our guests (friends and family) never really notice them as we do.
I think we are truly on the same page, here. Again!
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: )
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