Ritzy Salmon Spinach Quiche
Ingredients
for the crust:
- 3 1/2 tablespoons butter melted
- 1 sleeve Ritz crackers
for the filling:
- 8 oz baby spinach
- 1 small onion thinly sliced
- 8 oz poached salmon flaked
- 6 eggs
- 1 1/4 cups milk
- 3-4 oz crumbled feta
- 2 teaspoons Italian or Mediterranean seasoning
- 3/4 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning
- zest of one lemon
- salt
- freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- In a medium bowl, stir together the crumbs and butter until the mixture sticks together
- Press the mixture to form a crust in a pie plate or quiche pan or tart pan. Bake 10 minutes or until lightly browned and crisp. Cool on wire rack.
- Reduce oven to 325.
- Meanwhile, saute the onion and greens in a small amount of oil or butter until the greens are wilted. If your salmon is cold, add that to the pan and heat to take the chill off.
- Allow to cool to room temperature. In a medium bowl, whisk together the spices, milk, cheese, and eggs. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Pour into the pan.
- Bake 45-50 minutes or until fully cooked.
- Cool on wire rack.
Notes
- If there is water on the surface of the quiche when it is fully cooked, carefully blot it with a cloth or paper towel. I did not have this problem but it can be an issue with spinach.
- I used a Pyrex pie plate
- I love my hand egg beater to get it really fluffy and well mixed.
- I poached the salmon the day before in a shallow pan with water, lemon slices, and fennel seeds. I flaked it then refrigerated it overnight. Or use leftover poached, roasted or grilled salmon from another recipe!
Is it getting too hot for quiche? Oh well. Make it in the morning before it gets hot.
I had a craving for it recently and was going to make it using leftover grilled chicken and kale from my new CSA box (featuring food grown here in Baltimore City!) but the kale was so bitter we ended up eating the chicken in some Samyang Carbo Spicy Chicken Ramen instead.
I still wanted to try making a quiche using Ritz crackers as the crust. I had made a few quiches (steak and smoked salmon) with breadcrumb crusts some years back but never tried cracker crumbs. After my success with crab cakes, I thought Ritz crackers might be the way to go! Actually, I used Aldi brand “buttery rounds” instead but we all know they are really Ritz. They worked really well as a crust! I didn’t get them quite up the edge but when I added the filling they sort of “floated” to coat the sides. Which is really what I wanted, a coating to provide some structure to the slices but not so much that it overpowered the flavor of the salmon and spinach. I had some salmon in the freezer from Sitka Salmon Shares (they sent me some free to try out–use my discount code for $25 off a share–CALFish) so I poached it, deboned it (there are a lot of bones so pick carefully! I was still picking them out the next day as I was making the quiche) last night to streamline the process.
The quiche came together really quickly for quiche since I was using cracker crumbs and prepped the salmon the day before but the bake time slightly eases it out of “weeknight dinner” territory for me. Luckily, it’s a great brunch food, and once cooked, its delightful at room temperature so you can make it and eat it whenever you want. I don’t know about you but making the pie crust (or using a not as great store-bought one) is what really keeps me from making quiche more often. Using buttery crackers gives you some of that same taste but is much easier and honestly, I think I like it better. It’s a little lighter textured and a little fresher.
