A simpler springtime take on the brunch classic featuring asparagus and leeks
In my family, quiches have always been reserved for holidays and special occasions. It’s for good reason: a quiche is a lot of work. Much like a pizza, each element needs preparing before the quiche can even be assembled, including the crust, the custard, and the precooked meats and veggies. While quiche does have some notably easier eggy relatives, like strata or frittata, there are times when only the flaky-crusted, creamy-filled drama of a quiche will do. So, in pursuit of making an anytime quiche, I employed two of my favorite culinary shortcuts: store-bought puff pastry and my trusty sheet pan.
As a crust lover, a sheet-pan quiche (sometimes called a slab quiche) has my ideal pastry-to-filling ratio. The thinner layer of eggy custard also allows the quiche to bake faster and cool down more quickly. I use a rimmed quarter sheet pan, exactly half the size of a half sheet pan, to make a quiche that serves up to eight people, while using another sheet pan to cook the filling ingredients, like tender seasonal asparagus and sweet leeks, with a lot less tending.
I can wax lyrical about ready-made puff pastry for hours, but the bottom line is that it tastes good, it’s a real time-saver, and nobody expects you to make puff pastry from scratch anyway. I always look for one made from real butter—my go-to brand is Dufour. You’ll need about one and a half sheets of pastry to line the sheet pan (save the rest for something tasty, like a few easy fruit turnovers ), which means that the two pieces of dough will need to be joined together with a light brushing of water before being rolled out into one large rectangle. The crust gets parbaked before being filled to prevent sogginess, which makes for more attractive, structurally sound slices later.
No matter the pan I bake it in, I have one unconditional rule when it comes to quiche: don’t shred your cheese, cube it. This lesson was handed to me by my dear Aunt Zapote, who is the resident quiche queen in my family. Grated cheese blends into the background. Chunks of cheese make for an infinitely gooier quiche, complete with dramatic cheese pulls. So, while making a quiche will never be exactly simple, this one is definitely worth it.