How To Make An Easy Vegan Quiche

How to make an easy vegan Quiche. Quiche was a dish that I’ve eaten for as long as I can remember. My Nan used to bake it, and my mum too, and it was for special occasions only. On Boxing Day, we’d have quiche. On birthdays or family get-togethers we’d have quiche. And because it was so sparingly shared with us, it was honestly the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.

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It was always the most popular dish on the buffet table, and therefore, you had to act quickly, and with your stomach, to ensure that you got a large enough slice (or two if you were really skilled), and then you could scurry away with it in the corner, smugly watching the other losers having to eat cheese and pineapple on sticks instead, because they were too slow, or too absorbed in boring stuff like talking about football.

What is Quiche?

Most of you will know Quiche as an eggy baked flan, enriched with cream, often cheesy, sometimes with bacon, but always lots of eggs. A sort of savoury set custard, but denser, and in a shortcrust pastry case. As you might guess from the name, it is of French origin; however, the British were making similar baked tarts in the middle ages too. According to Wikipedia, the word Quiche may come from the German for Cake or flan, Kuchen, but that is merely conjecture. It is always romantic to think that these words originated somewhere, but we don’t know where from. Was it from a novel, or a place, or maybe it was just a nickname.

How do you make a Vegan Quiche?

I often wondered to myself, how do you make a quiche vegan? So, to make a vegan quiche, you firstly need to remove the egg and cream elements. Egg typically offers a firm structure that binds everything together as it cooks. Vegan Quiche with egg replacer? You can buy egg replacers or use flaxseed egg, but for something where the egg is the main textural element, you need a comparable element with more bulk, and here is where silken tofu plays the role of egg to perfection.

If you want a firmer textured quiche, rather than slightly creamy, you can use firm tofu if you’d prefer. I added a couple of additional ingredients that add both an eggy taste, and a cheesier flavour:

• Dijon mustard gives a little bit colour and flavour
• Asafoetida adds an eggy flavour (you can also use black salt)
• Nutritional Yeast adds a cheesy flavour, and again, adds colour
• Vegan Blue Cheese, but use whatever vegan cheese you prefer, but do make sure it has a fairly strong flavour

Method

So, much like traditional quiche, to make my quick and easy vegan quiche, this is really simple to put together, although the procedure is somewhat different. The vegetable element is sauteed, the tofu element is blended and then this is all mixed up together in a bowl. And of course, the texture is different to a raw quiche mix, it is thicker, and you will be able to spoon it in your prepared pastry case, rather than pour it in.

The Pastry Case

If you are able to, use a prebaked savoury shortcrust pastry crust. I could only find sweet pastry crusts in my local store, so I bought some premade pastry and blind baked the crust first. To bind bake, roll out your pastry so that it is a couple of inches diameter wider than your quiche dish and line your dish with it. A little overhang is fine, the pastry will shrink during cooking. Prick all over the bottom of the pastry with a fork (this stops the pastry from puffing up during baking) and bake for 10 minutes at 180c.

It is important to blind bake your pastry before adding the filling because the filling is quite wet, and might inhibit the cooking of the base properly. No one wants a soggy bottom!

Alternatives

• Replace the asparagus with any veggies of your choice: peas, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, mixed herbs
• Add some diced vegan ham, omit the cheese and you have a vegan Quiche Lorraine
• Make a spanish style quiche using cubed potato sauteed with onion and red pepper
• Sara has a delicious Mushroom, Asparagus and Tomato Frittata recipe over at Cooking with Fudge!

Once you have the basic recipe perfected, you can personalise it as much as you like! Without further ado, here’s my Easy Vegan Quiche Recipe:

Asparagus and Blue Cheese Vegan Quiche

5 from 2 votes

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Course: Main Course

Cuisine: French

Keyword: Quick Suppers, Vegan Quiche

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 6" dia Prebaked Shortcrust Pastry Case
• 280 g Silken Tofu, drained and dried on kitchen roll
• 1 bunch Asparagus about 12 stalks, rinsed, chopped into small rings
• 1 small Onion finely diced
• ½ Teaspoon chopped fresh Thyme
• 2 tbsp chopped Parsley
• 1 Teaspoon Olive Oil
• 2 tbsp Nutritional Yeast
• ¼ Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
• ¼ Teaspoon Asafoetida
• 1 Teaspoon Dijon Mustard
• Salt and Pepper
• 50 g Vegan Blue Cheese grated (or vegan cheese of your choice)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 180c.
• In a pan, gently heat olive oil.
• Saute the onion and chopped asparagus until softened, About 10 mins.
• Add the fresh Thyme, chopped Parsley and season.
• Add to a large bowl to cool whilst you prep the other ingredients.
• In a blender, whizz up the drained and dried tofu, the Nutritional Yeast, Mustard, Cayenne Pepper, Asafoetida and some more seasoning.
• Add this to the bowl.
• Finally, add the grated cheese and mix all the ingredients together until thoroughly combined.
• Pour this into your pastry case, and bake for about 50 minutes or until browned on the top.
• Leave to cool completely before cutting and serving.

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