I’m completely enamored with the variety of scrambled egg boats and egg bake recipes that are all over the internet. In my search, I found that either the french bread is already baked, hollowed out, and the eggs are poured in raw and baked in the baguette. Or, the eggs are scrambled first and wrapped in a crescent or similar dough and then baked together. I had a tube of Pillsbury French Bread dough in my refrigerator and I really wanted to do something with eggs! So, I decided that rather than cook either of them first, that I wanted to try cooking them together just as you do when you cook a quiche in a pie crust.
I approached it just as I do when I bake a quiche, except I had to figure out how to get the Pillsbury French Bread dough to play nice for this project. I probably should have set up a tripod and taken video of my fun fight with the dough! I’m no stranger to manipulating dough with a rolling pin, but French bread dough is a different beast. Cookie dough, pie dough, biscuit dough, they all know what’s up and know the rules of succumbing to the rolling pin. French bread dough was quite stubborn and didn’t want to play nice. Regardless, I persisted in rolling it out into a shape that I thought I could get into the pie dish. I continued to work it as if it were a pizza pie dough, gently pulling and stretching it in the air before putting in the pie dish. And then, I fought gravity and the dough’s strong will to shrink back to the bottom of the dish. It was a repetitive exercise of pulling the dough towards the top, squish, turn, and repeat. I think two things would have helped in this situation, perhaps a bit more dough and/or using pizza dough instead of French bread dough. So, now I know what I will try next.
Moving on, once the dough was in an okay position, I dropped the sautéed veggies in and topped with the egg and cheese mixture, just like I do when I make a regular quiche. It looked pretty good, so I carefully popped it in the oven and baked until the egg mixture no longer jiggled and the dough was golden.
The result? It looked really good and Rustic French Bread Veggie Quiche was born!! The French bread performed well in the pie dish and it created a nice, uniform pie. I was quite happy with the way it looked. I cut into it and it had a nice, bready consistency and the eggs were cooked all the way through. The challenge? Unlike baking a quiche in pie crust, the eggs didn’t stay contained within the French bread crust. Some were on top with the veggies and then some eggs without veggies were underneath the French bread. It was kind of interesting and got me thinking about doing an upside down quiche! Who knows if I’ll try that one or not, but certainly stranger things have happened in my kitchen.
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- Roll out the dough.
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- Sauté the veggies.
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- Put the veggies in the crust.
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- Add the egg mixture to the crust.
Rustic French Bread Veggie Quiche
Ingredients
- Cooking spray
- 1 tube Pillsbury French Bread dough
- 4 eggs beaten
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/2 cup Mexican or Pepper Jack cheese shredded
- 1/4 cup red onion minced
- 1/2 jalapeño minced
- 1/2 cup mushrooms coursely chopped
- 1/2 cup bell pepper chopped
- 1 cup fresh spinach
- 1 Tbs olive oil
- 1/2 tsp garlic salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350°.
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Spray pie dish with cooking spray and set aside.
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Take Pillsbury French Bread dough out of the package, place on a cutting board, and roll out with a rolling pin to approximately 1/4" thick. This will be far from a perfect circle or square.
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Pull and stretch the dough as needed and place into pie dish to line the dish as best you can and set aside. Remember, it's a rustic quiche.
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Whip the eggs and milk until combined and then add in the cheese.
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Mince and chop your veggies and sauté them.
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Then add spinach and add in the garlic salt and black pepper, sauté until spinach is just wilted.
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Add veggie mixture to the French bread dough in your pie dish.
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Top with egg and cheese mixture.
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Bake for 20 minutes and check for doneness. The eggs should be firm and the outside of the crust should be golden brown. If not, add 5 minutes (give or take, depending on your oven).
Recipe Notes
I had to add 5 minutes time twice in order to achieve the golden brown color I was looking for on the crust. The eggs appeared to be done, but the golden color was lacking on the bread. It was achieved after an additional 5 minutes, for a total baking time of 30 minutes.
Enjoy!
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