When Adding Cauliflower To Quiche, Follow This Simple Step For Crisp Results

Cauliflower is quite the vegetable of all trades. You can transform it easily into rice, roast it simply as a side, or even include it in a quiche to add a healthy and flavorful bite to the dish. But when adding cauliflower to homemade quiche, there's a simple step you need to follow for the best flavor and texture: precook the veggie. You generally want to precook most veggies before adding them to quiche, since a lot of water can leak and evaporate from the vegetables during cooking. In turn, this can easily turn a custardy quiche filling or flaky crust soggy. To ensure the pastry cooks up nice and crisp, precook your cauliflower before adding it to the raw egg mixture and baking it in the oven. 

Since cauliflower has a high water content of around 92% by weight,  it's especially crucial to cook it before so its cooking liquids don't water log the baked quiche.  Plus, a hearty vegetable like cauliflower might very well cook at a different rate than the egg base in a standard quiche recipe. Pre-cooking cauliflower removes some of the cauliflower's moisture so it doesn't end up in the quiche, and it ensures the veggie cooks through fully — with optimal flavor. Precooking cauliflower florets before adding them to quiche gives them a chance to become perfectly tender inside with a juicy exterior bite. 

One of the easiest ways to cook fresh cauliflower is by steaming it. But you can also roast or sauté the florets simply with olive oil, salt, and pepper to give the veggies a little more caramelization, browning, and flavor. From there, preparing a homemade quiche is relatively easy. Just place precooked cauliflower florets within the base of your baking dish or pie crust. Then, pour the mixture of egg, cream, and spices over the vegetables and bake them until cooked thoroughly.

It's likely you'll find that adding pre-cooked cauliflower florets is a simple and effective way to add taste, fiber, and nutrients to the satisfyingly crisp egg custard and crust. The same pre-cook method can be applied to a variety of vegetables when making a loaded vegetarian quiche. That way, you can incorporate veggies such as kale, mushrooms, or squash without worry about excess cooking liquid affecting the texture of the dish.

The same goes for quiches that include meat, which is best cooked before adding it to the base of a raw quiche. Otherwise, you can mix in other ready-to-eat ingredients, which impart minimal moisture, like feta or goat cheese. Once you discover the plethora of quiche recipes fit for enjoying all day long — breakfast, lunch, or dinner — there's no looking back. To add even more veggies, serve a bed of fresh salad directly atop or alongside a cooked slice of quiche.