Zacchary Bird
Zacchary Bird
The vegan butcher, the vegan baker and the vegan trouble maker.

My quiche recipe is nowhere near groundbreaking, but it's damn delicious and uses some nifty vegan cooking tricks. By relying on old friends such as nutritional yeast (for cheesiness and B vitamins), black salt (for eggy flavour and scent) and chickpea flour (for texture/density), the fact that this quiche is technically healthy (I swear, it was a total accident) is just wild.

This recipe is doubly fun as it's not only vegan, it's also gluten free! That's because the crust is essentially just crispy potatoes. Why muck around with gluten free flour when you can get more potato in your life?

Haans Siver from Bare Cravings invited me on Sea Shepherd's MY Steve Irwin to film a how-to for this recipe, so if you want to be walked through how to make this, you're in luck! Check that out right here.

SPICY QUICHE

INGREDIENTS

QUICHE MIX:

  • 1 cup besan/gram/chickpea flour

  • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

  • 1 + 1/4 cup water

  • 3/4 cup jalapeño in brine (including brine so about 3/8 cup of jalapeño and 3/8 cup brine)

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil

  • 1/2 teaspoon black salt

CRUST

  • 500g potato, shredded (approximately)

  • 3 tablespoons rice flour

  • Salt and pepper

FILLINGS (whatever you like, but here's some ideas!)

  • 2 capsicums (1 red/1 green), 1 red onion, 1 bunch basil, 2 teaspoons garlic and a handful of cherry tomatoes OR

  • Rice paper bacon OR

  • Dairy free cheese

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METHOD

  • Preheat the oven to 250 degrees celsius. Oil a pie pan or baking dish and place in the oven to heat for at least 10 minutes.

  • Rinse shredded potato with water and squeeze to remove as much moisture as possible. Mix together the crust ingredients in a bowl, and once the oil in the baking dish is hot, press the crust mixture into the dish and mould into a crust shape with a spoon. If your oil is hot enough, you should hear a satisfying sizzle! Allow this to bake for 10-15 minutes before removing for the rest of the recipe.

  • Blend all the quiche mix ingredients together well.

  • Fill the crust with your choice of fillings and pour the quiche mix over this, mixing if you need so that the fillings are well distributed. It's perfectly fine if the liquid mixture isn't held fully by the crust and spills over, as it will crust up itself on the edges.

  • Reduce the heat in the oven to 220 degrees and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the quiche comes out (mostly) clean. The centre of the quiche will firm up further as it cools, so allow to cool and serve!

TIPS

  • If doubling this recipe for a large baking dish, bake for 45-50 minutes.

  • If using rice paper bacon as a filling, the marinade can be made as follows: 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast, 2 tablespoons BBQ sauce, 3 teaspoons brown sugar, 3 teaspoons smoked paprika, 2 teaspoons liquid smoke and a pinch of onion powder. As demonstrated in the video, use this with 10-12 sheets of rice paper to make 4 bacon circles, before cutting haphazardly into chunks for the filling.