French Quiche Lorraine Recipe is a classic quiche from my childhood.
My Mama and grandmother always prepared this gorgeous quiche for lunch or dinner with a little salad.
Learn how to make an easy French quiche Lorraine from scratch with the dough and crust as well with our family recipe from the Lorrain.
Classic Quiche Lorraine is part of our French heritage.
Commonly prepared in all French homes, quiche makes a filling meal for the whole family.
Our quiche lorraine is an authentic recipe and I think absolutely the best quiche lorraine recipe out there.
What is quiche lorraine?
Quiche (pronounced as Keesh in English) are savory open-faced french shortcrust pies, filled and baked with an egg cream (omelette/frittata kind of) mixture.
Sometimes you have dishes, such as the Onion Tart, which are kind of quiche but are known as Tart locally, those are prepared nearly the same way as a conventional quiche.
The Quiche Lorraine Recipe is the mother of all quiche, most modern quiche recipes are often based on this French classic.
Where is Quiche Lorraine from?
The name of this particular quiche indicates that the quiche lorraine is a regional specialty from the Lorraine in France.
The Lorraine is situated in the northeast of France bordering Alsace and the famous champagne regions, besides the countries Luxembourg and Germany.
Lorraine and Alsace where often while part of the German empire in the past and so the name Quiche originated from the German word Kuchen (meaning cake).
I sourced this info from the Larousse Gastronomique.
The original name for quiche in the Lorraine is féouse.
In the rest of France, quiche is the name given to this dish.
My great-grandfather was from that region when he had to flee because he had placed the French flag on his house.
The Germans were ruling the area at that time and burned down the whole house with his family when he was out of the house.
Quiche Lorraine Ingredients
A traditional classic quiche lorraine always consists of a pastry, so-called simple shortcrust pastry, and a filling prepared with egg and cream.
These are the following ingredients you will need to make an irresistible easy quiche lorraine from scratch.
For the Quiche Lorraine Shortcrust pastry:
- Butter
- All-Purpose Flour
- Salt
- Water
For the Quiche Lorraine Filling:
- Egg
- Milk
- All-Purpose Flour
- Ham or smoked pork belly lard (eventually in the English speaking countries, bacon can be used too)
- Cheese
- Black Pepper
- Nutmeg
- fresh Chives to garnish
Ingredients added or removed doesn't make this a quiche lorraine but another quiche variety.
For example, if you add spinach you will have a quiche florentine.
If you remove the ham, it won't be a quiche.
Something like a vegan/vegetarian quiche Lorraine actually doesn't exist. You would just call it a quiche by itself because a quiche lorraine includes ham/lard.
Other Quiche varieties:
- Quiche provençale - with Tomatoes
- Quiche au fromage - with Cheese only
- Quiche au champignion - with Mushrooms
- Quiche au saumon - with salmon
- Tarte a l'ognion - with onion (comes from the Picardie region and that's why it's not called a quiche)
... and the sacrilege Quiche variations (the ones which shouldn't be but they are because people love these quiches)
- Quiche au thon - with Tuna
- Quiche au asperge - with Asparagus
What Cheese for Quiche Lorraine?
The authentic quiche lorraine recipe doesn't include any cheese, however, most people make it with cheese all over France.
A ham quiche lorraine with cheese just tastes all the better because the cheese makes a crust over the quiche but of course, again to make it clear, the real quiche lorraine is without cheese.
Pick a milder/semi-sharp tasting cheese that melts well with a normal fat amount.
You can use one of the following cheese variations:
- Emmenthal
- Comté
- Gruyere (mild version)
- Cheddar (mild version)
Can I make Quiche Lorraine without eggs?
No. Eggs are the main ingredient in a quiche Lorraine
Can you freeze Quiche Lorraine?
Yes, although it's not commonly done at all.
You would be better off making a fresh one.
If you must freeze, place the baked and cooled down quiche as a whole into some kind of an aluminum tray and cover with aluminum.
Place into the freezer and freeze for up to max 2 months.
I would not suggest freezing a raw whole quiche. Instead, prepare the dough, refrigerate as you would normally and roll out.
Then just roll the dough between butter paper and freeze that way.
This is your best option.
Useful Tools
- Tart/Quiche Pan in Porcelain. You can directly serve the quiche in that as seen in the pictures.
- Silicon Pastry Baking Mat comes with the diameters to cut the shape
- Stand Mixer if you don't want to make the dough by hand
What to serve with Quiche Lorraine for Lunch or Dinner?
We always serve a French quiche Lorraine with some kind of salad.
Because the Quiché Lorraine is a typical summer meal, we tend to harvest green beans and various salads from the garden.
That means light salads are served with Quiche Lorraine.
You can serve any of the following salads with this easy quiche lorraine recipe:
- Simple green salad (lettuce, iceberg, rocket, romaine) or sliced fresh tomato with a French vinaigrette or herbal dressing
- Radish Broccoli Salad
- Radish Salad
- french/green bean salad with vinaigrette
- tuna asparagus salad
- Carrot Salad
- Coleslaw
- Beet Salad
Or serve with a light vegetable side dish such as roasted carrots, green beans with a dollop of melted butter.
Can I serve quiche for breakfast or brunch?
No. Quiche Lorraine is too heavy to be a breakfast or brunch meal and it kind of sounds wrong from a french perspective.
But it's related to the frittata, so you are free to do what your heart aches for.
Dear Reader, how did you get to know about the french quiche lorraine?
Please feel free to share with us your thoughts or questions further below in the comment section.
Quiche Lorraine Recipe
Ingredients
For the shortcrust pastry:
- 7 ounces All Purpose Flour
- 3.5 ounces Butter
- pinch Salt
- 2-3 Tablespoons Water
For the filling:
- 4 Eggs
- 1 cup Milk
- 1 Tablespoon All purpose Flour
- â…” cup smoked Ham or lard/bacon
- ½ Teaspoon Salt optional, only if you didn't use smoked ham/lard/bacon. see notes
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper
- pinch Nutmeg
- 2 Tablespoon Chives chopped
- 2 Tablespoon Cheese grated Gruyere or Comte or Emmentaler or mild Cheddar Cheese
Instructions
- To make the Shortcrust, place the butter into a mixing bowl and add the flour and salt.
- With your hand mix the content and add water gradually to the butter-flour mixture. Work the dough out and keep to rest in a cool place for about ½ - 1 hour.
- Then take out the dough and work it out shortly again. Roll it out to 0.5 cm/0.2 inch thickness. Place the tart mold over the dough, add 2 cm radius and cut out the dough into a round shape.
- Preheat the oven to 200 Celsius/400 Fahrenheit!
- Poke with a fork randomly a few times into the dough. That will prevent the crust to deform while baking. Blind bake (pre-baking) your dough for about 8 minutes.
- In a mixing bowl add the eggs, milk, and flour and combine the ingredients by whisking with a fork shortly until the mixture appears white in color. Then add the ham, ( eventually salt) black pepper, nutmeg and chopped chives and mix once again.
- Bake for about 25 minutes at 200 Celsius/400 Fahrenheit.
- Once baked, leave out a bit to cool and cut into slices.
Notes
- You can use salted Butter for the shortcrust pastry but then skip adding salt to the dough preparation.
- Add 1-2 Tablespoon Water. You need to adjust and use your judgment! a humid climate might need a little less water and a dry climate more. It also depends on the flour quality.a little too much water can make it soggy, in that case, add a very small amount of flour to balance it out again
- The dough must rest in the fridge so that it's hard and cold, that way you can roll the dough out.
- Try to use smoked ham or lard for this quiche lorraine. Smoked lard or bacon is salted enough and therefore you wouldn't need to add any salt to the quiche filling.
- You can choose to skip the blind baking of the dough by pouring the filling over the raw dough. We do that when we are in a hurry but the dough tends to be a bit undercooked or let's say less dry. If you pick that method, then add the 8 minutes to the total cooking time of the quiche.
- The Quiche makes 8 servings/slices. That makes usually 2 slices per Person in Europe.
- The authentic quiche is without cheese. You can make this quiche lorraine without cheese.
