Cheesy Beans & Bacon Quiche

Oh, I am just a little bit proud of this one, but it could divide the crowd as it is hardly haute cuisine. In fact, it’s a riff on that student life staple – cheesy beans on toast. If I had a £ for every time I had that for lunch and dinner as an impoverished student, quite frankly I’d be able to retire at 50! Ok, well, maybe more like 55 …

Anyway, my Cheesy Beans & Bacon Quiche is a thing of beauty to behold with that burnished cheese topping and it is equally pleasing to eat. Put your edible flowers and coconut kefir away (not that you’ll find recipes for them here either) and go get yourself a can of beans. Indulge your inner food chav just this once – I promise I won’t tell anybody…

This quiche was born out of a fridge full of leftovers – a few rashers of bacon, a chunk of Double Gloucester with added chives and half a pot of sour cream. Ironically, I was planning an altogether far more high brow quiche for lunch with some smoked salmon as the star player but I forgot my plans and ate it for breakfast with scrambled eggs. Oh, bother.

What is a girl to do with a Hungry Hubby to feed and all those leftovers to make good?

As you may have seen before, I love to make my quiches with a light pizza dough base rather than butter rich and calorie high shortcrust pastry (let’s not even think about puff pastry in January!) – save your calories for the filling. Talking of filling, I started by spreading the baked beans on the dough before topping with the traditional savoury “custard” you use in a quiche, here made up of eggs, sour cream, cooked and crumbled bacon plus I did stretch to sautéing off an onion and adding that too.

A sprinkle of dried chives, which are even more potent in flavour than the fresh version finished with a grating of our favourite cheese and you’re laughing.

Like most trashy recipes, it tastes so good you’ll not feel guilty about the use of baked beans for too long 😉

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Cheesy Beans & Bacon Quiche

A delicious quiche made with a light pizza dough base and filled with delicious leftovers from breakfast.

Servings: 6

: 197 kcal

Author: Just Jo

Ingredients

For the dough

• 160 g strong white bread flour
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 3/4 tsp dried yeast
• 110 g water approx

For the filling

• Half a large can of baked beans approx 200g
• 1 small onion finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp olive oil
• 3 rashers of cooked smoked bacon crumbled or chopped fine
• 1 tbsp dried chives
• 1 tsp dried mustard powder
• 2 medium-large eggs
• 125 g sour cream
• Plenty of cracked black pepper

To finish

• 2-3 tbsp grated cheese I use Double Gloucester with chives but a very mature Cheddar would be superb

Instructions

1. Place the ingredients for the base in a large bowl and pour in most of the water - bring together with a spatula to make a soft, slightly sticky dough - you may not need to add all the water or a little bit more depending on the flour used. Knead until well mixed and smooth then lightly grease the ball of dough and cover with cling. Leave in a warm spot to prove for one hour.

2. Meanwhile, heat a sauté pan with the olive oil and cook your onions until soft and slightly browned. Transfer to a plate to cool.
3. Preheat the oven to 200˚C and place a baking tray on the shelf you intend to cook the quiche.

4. When the dough has proved, grease your hands and shape the dough into a sausage shape the length of your tart tin (mine is 12 x 35 cm big with a loose bottom - see note below for directions for a larger round tart tin). Place the dough in the tin and press it out to fill the base and come up the sides. You may curse my name as you do this but it will stretch and fit! I usually tack it over the rim of the tin in places to ensure it doesn't fall down the sides.

5. Spread the baked beans on the dough base evenly.
6. Mix the cooked onions with the remaining filling ingredients and beat until smooth then pour over the beans gently.
7. Sprinkle over the cheese to finish and carefully transfer to the preheated baking tray (which helps brown the bottom of the quiche and also collect any spills as the filling will soufflé up as it cooks then sink back down). Bake for 30-35 minutes until piping hot, well browned and puffed.
8. Cool on a rack for 20 minutes before unmoulding and serving - quiche is always better for having time to settle and the cheese to cool down enough to not risk blistering your mouth as you eat!

Recipe Notes

To make this in a more common 9 inch round tin, simply add an extra rasher of bacon, use a medium onion, increase the sour cream to 150g, make sure your eggs are definitely large and use a little extra cheese. Use the dough recipe for my Chicken, Chorizo and Asparagus tart for the base.
Serve with a green side salad whilst still warm. It freezes exceptionally well wrapped first in cling film then tin foil and you can reheat it on a baking sheet for 20 minutes once thawed.

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