TL; DR Recipe Summary

👩🏼‍🍳 Bake Level: Easy/Beginner

⏱️ Bake Time: ~30-45 minutes

😋 Taste: Creamy, cheesy, custardy, savory.

🍽️ Best Served With: Serve this during a brunch with family or friends alongside a batch of simple french toast muffins, a stack of fluffy buttermilk chocolate chip pancakes, or alongside a breakfast charcuterie board.

Trusted Tips and Key Reminders

Blind baking the crust before filling it with dried beans or pie weights. This will help keep the dough from rising as it bakes and lift away from the sides of the pie dish.

Keep the pastry dough as cold as possible before rolling out and pressing into the pie dish.

Let the broccoli cool a little bit before adding to the egg and milk mixture. Believe it or not, the warm broccoli could cause the eggs to cook a little and we do not want that!

Season with a generous amount of salt and pepper as you whisk the liquids together.

The Main Ingredients

Ingredients needed to make broccoli cheddar quiche.

Pastry Dough: You can absolutely use store-bought pie crust, but if you want an EASY challenge, you can make my homemade galette pastry dough recipe which is perfect for a quiche.

Broccoli: The veggie we use for the filling Broccoli softens as it bakes and becomes super flavorful thanks to the cream and cheese.

Cheddar: Cheese helps to bind the ingredients together and give it a creamy, cheesy texture and taste.

Half and Half: This helps make the egg filling more like a custard.

Eggs: The eggs is what makes this a quiche. A quiche is a baked-egg pastry with our without a crust. We use four eggs.

Butter: To use for sautéing the aromatics (garlic and shallot)

Shallot: Adds a depth of flavor to the overall quiche.

Quiche Swaps and Substitutions

If you are used to baking gluten free, you can swap with the flour that you're used to baking with.

If you're not entirely sold on using broccoli, you can opt for spinach, bacon, mushrooms, onions, peppers, tomatoes. You name it, you can use it!

As I mentioned earlier, you can opt for a store-bought crust if you are short on time.

How to make a broccoli cheddar quiche

Ice cold water added to a bowl of mixed butter, flour, sugar, and salt, then kneaded together into a ball of dough.

Step 1: Grate very cold butter into a bowl of flour, sugar, and mix together until the mixture resembles small pea size pieces. Add in a few tablespoons of ice water, kneading together with a spatula until it forms a rough dough, then mix with your hands.

Fresh kneaded pastry dough wrapped in plastic wrap.

Step 2: Knead the dough until it comes together, then wrap in some plastic wrap and flatten into a disc. Store in the fridge for up to one hour.

Step 3: Lay out the pastry dough and roll until ½ an inch thick, then lay across the top of the pie dish. Put a piece of parchment over the top of the pie dough and pour in baking beans or dry rice to blind bake the crust. Bake the crust at 350º for 20 minutes.

broccoli cheddar quiche in a dish unbaked

Step 4: While the pie crust blind bakes, sauté the garlic and onions in butter until fragrant. As ths garlic and onions sauté, bring a large pot of water to a boil, and steam the broccoli until fork tender. Strain then set aside.

In a large bowl, crack in the eggs, then add in the heavy cream, cheddar cheese, salt, pepper and whisk. To the egg mixture, pour in the broccoli, garlic, and onion. Mix with a spatula and set aside. Once the crust has cooled, pour the egg mixture into the crust and bake at 375º for 35 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.