Quiche Florentine (Spinach Quiche)
A French dish with Italian inspiration, Quiche Florentine is an elegant, yet easy, spring-inspired dish.
Why Quiche Florentine?
In French cooking, dishes that include spinach are called à la Florentine.
But, why, is the question.
The term comes from the French queen Catherine de Médici, who was born in Florence and married the heir to the French throne. When Catherine became Queen of France, she brought her own cooks from Florence, along with spinach seeds. (Can you believe the French didn't have spinach until the mid 1500s?)
As her cooks began making dishes with spinach, the practice gained popularity and spinach became known as a vegetable from Florence.
Making Easy French Quiche
Quiche is an incredibly versatile formula recipe: Start with a 9 inch pie crust. Whisk the egg and milk mixture together in a ratio of 1 part egg to 2 parts milk. (1 egg is roughly 2 oz, so you need 1 egg for every ½ cup of milk.) Add 2 or so cups of filling ingredients (cooked meats and vegetables) and 1-2 cups of cheese (depending on how rich you want your quiche).
And there you have it! Any combination of fridge leftovers can be used.
Choosing a Milk for Quiche
One thing to remember is that milk-fat helps to produce a firm finished quiche, so fat is essential. 1% milk will work, but it will create a slightly watery end product.
We recommend using (at least) 2% or whole milk. Half and half yields an even smoother and more firm quiche.
How To Tell When Your Quiche Is Done
It can be tricky to tell when you quiche is ready to come out of the oven. We use a series of checks to make sure ours are ready.
The quiche will be very puffy and a knife inserted into the center will come out clean. (It might look moist, but there won't be any bits of egg sticking to it.)
Don't doubt the wobble.
Your quiche Florentine should have just a little bit of a wobble to it when it comes out of the oven. It will continue to cook (and fall) as you let it rest for 10 minutes. This resting time is essential to settle the quiche and ensure your slices come out perfectly!
Quiche Florentine (Spinach Quiche)
Ingredients
For the 9” Pie Crust
- 1 c + 2 Tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 7 tablespoon unsalted butter, cold and cut into chunks
- ¼ c + 1 Tbsp ice cold water
For the Quiche
- 1 ½ c whole milk
- 3 eggs
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon rosemary
- ½ teaspoon thyme
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 c fresh spinach, chopped
- 1 c Swiss cheese
Instructions
For the 9” Pie Crust
- Preheat your oven to 425F.
- Place the flour and salt in the bowl of your food processor. Add the cold chunks of butter. Pulse to combine the mixture, until you have evenly distributed grains of butter within the flour.
- Slowly add ¼ c of cold water, pulsing as you add, until the dough starts to come together. (If it doesn't come together after ¼ c, slowly add 1 tablespoon more.)
- Remove the dough from the food processor and press firmly into a ball. Roll the dough out to a roughly 11 inch circle and place it in a 9 inch pie pan.
- Place a piece of parchment paper inside the crust and fill it with pie weights or dried beans.
- Bake the pie crust for 10-15 minutes, until lightly golden.
For the Quiche
- While the crust is baking, whisk together milk, eggs, and seasonings.
- Once the crust has baked, carefully remove the pie weights or beans.
- Sprinkle the chopped spinach into the baked crust and top it with the cheese. Gently pour the egg mixture over the fillings.
- Reduce your oven temperature to 400F.
- Return the quiche to the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes, until puffy and slightly wobbly.* (A knife inserted into the center of the quiche should come out moist, but clean of any eggy bits.)
- Place the cooked quiche on a wire rack for 10 minutes to let it finish cooking and set up.
- Serve warm or refrigerate overnight and serve chilled.
Notes
Nutrition
More spring-inspired recipes from around the world
Appetizers
- Panzanella Primavera by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
Sides
- Asparagus Gribiche by The Wimpy Vegetarian
Entreés
- Early Spring Risotto by Cooking Chat
- Irish Lamb Stew by Food Lust People Love
- Root Vegetable Risotto by Momma's Meals
- Spring Pea & Chèvre Souffle by FoodieTots
- Spring Vegetable Risotto by A Day in the Life on the Farm
Desserts
- Lemon Meringue Pie by Serena Bakes Simply From Scratch
- Palm Sunday Easter Bread by Love and Confections
Sarah founded Curious in 2010 as a way to save her recipe creations and share culinary experiences. Her love for cultural cuisines was instilled early by her French Canadian Grandmother. Her experience in the kitchen and in recipe development comes from over 10 years working in professional kitchens. She has traveled extensively and enjoys bringing the flavors of her travels back to create easy-to-make recipes.
Beautiful quiche, Sarah! I'm nuts for spinach. I need to try this soon!
I've yet to meet a quiche I didn't like (well, maybe an overcooked one, haha!) and yours looks absolutely heavenly!
Quiche is on of my favorite things... and this recipe is wonderful! Thanks for sharing the background on it all, too!
Quiche is my absolute favorite thing to indulge in at brunch, especially quiche florentine. Yours looks picture-perfect!
This is my favorite quiche flavor and yours looks so good!
Elegant, easy and perfect for spring - your talking me kinda yummy recipe!
Love the flavors in this quiche and thanks for the little bit of history 🙂
There is nothing like a totally scratch quiche! I love everything about his dish! YUM!
I do really struggle with quiche coming out right. It always ends up uncooked in the middle and well done on the outside. But I will keep trying till I get it right. I just love how beautiful and layered yours turned out.
Thanks! The layering was actually a bit of a surprise. I think since we used fresh spinach it floated on top of the eggs while they cooked. Cutting into it was quite fun!
Thanks for the little history lesson....LOVED it and love the quiche too.
Love a quiche for spring and yours looks perfect, YUM!!
I love these dishes that can be used to clean out the fridge of leftovers. Great idea!
It's fun to come up with new combos for quiche fillings based on what is in the fridge!
Love quiche! Great idea for Spring Fling with spinach and eggs!
I'm always ready for a slice of quiche---and your spinach version is my favorite kind!!!
Spinach quiche is such a classic favorite!
Oh I haven't had quiche is far too long. I'd love to have a big slice of this for my lunch today.
It had been way to long for us too! Now it might be a spring staple!