Potato Crust for Quiche

Potato Crust for Quiche made with grated potatoes, in this case, frozen hash browns.
This recipe was made in a 9" spring form pan.

Potatoes have long been eaten with eggs. One reason is that this is a great combination. For instance, hashbrowns and fried potatoes are often served with eggs for breakfast, and potatoes themselves are often found in a quiche filling. A way to make a crust for a quiche that has become popular is to make it out of potatoes instead of pastry.

Some recipes start with cooked potatoes, other with raw. Some grate the potatoes, others smash the potatoes or mash them before forming the crust, several recipes call for frozen hash browns. Potatoes are a great alternative to the traditional pastry crust.

One of the keys to making a potato crust is to make a tight fitting crust so that the filling does not leak through. Here are several styles of potato crust for quiche.

See Basic Quiche Recipe w/ Variations for a recipe for the egg custard and ideas for fillings.

Cooked and Grated Boiling Potates

The first recipe I saw for using potatoes as a crust was Emeril’s Smoked Salmon Quiche w/ Crispy Potato Crust. This is a wonderful quiche that Brian would make after he would smoke some salmon. The crust is made from cooked, then grated, boiling potatoes. After the grated potatoes are mixed with butter and Parmesan cheese, they are pressed into a pie pan and baked until golden brown before adding the filling. For the recipe, see Smoked Salmon Quiche w/ Crispy Potato Crust

See Basic Quiche Recipe w/ Variations for a recipe for the egg custard and other ideas for fillings.

Raw, Grated Idaho (baking potatoes) Potatoes

The recipe below grates raw Idaho potatoes, mixes them with grated onion and a little flour and, after pressing this mixture into a pie pan, bakes the crust for first 25 minutes to let the potatoes dry out somewhat, then brushes the crust with oil and bakes it for 15 minutes more until the edges brown. [I would use butter for flavor, or bacon grease if it made sense with the fillings.]

Potato Crust for Quiche
from https://www.kingarthurflour.com/

See Basic Quiche Recipe w/ Variations for a recipe for the egg custard and ideas for fillings.

1/2 cup (85g) grated onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry thyme
1/4 cup (28g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 pounds Idaho potatoes, peeled

Preheat oven to 450°F. Grease a 9- or 10-inch deep-dish pie pan. Set up a strainer over a bowl.
Grate the onions into the strainer, and drain for 10 minutes, pressing out the extra liquid.
When the onions are drained, transfer them to a bowl and combine them with the salt, thyme and flour.
Grate the potatoes into the strainer. Press out any extra liquid, then combine with the onion mixture, mixing to combine.
Pat the mixture into pie pan and up the sides. Bake for 25 minutes to let the steam escape.

After 25 minutes, brush the potatoes with oil, then bake for 15 minutes more, until the edges are golden brown. Remove from the oven and turn the oven temperature to 350°F.

Add the quiche filling. Return the quiche to the oven and bake for another 25 to 30 minutes, until the center is set. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before slicing. Serve warm.

1 quiche crust

Smashed Cooked Potatoes

There are some recipes that make a quiche crust out of mashed potatoes, but the recipe for Potato and Bacon Quiche from Food and Wine smash cooked Yukon Gold potatoes into the quiche pan to form the crust.

Although the title of the recipe includes the word "potato," potato is not added in the filling at all. Besides bacon, eggs and cream, the recipe calls for onion, arugula and fontina cheese, although any number of quiche fillings could be used.

See Basic Quiche Recipe w/ Variations for a recipe for the egg custard and ideas for fillings.

Layers of Sliced Potatoes

These are the instructions from Martha Stewart for a potato crust made with slices of potatoes: "Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss potato slices (1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes (about 5 small), peeled and cut into 1/8-inch slices) with oil (1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil) until well coated. Season with salt and pepper; toss again. Arrange slices in a circular pattern covering bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie dish, slightly overlapping; slices should extend over rim by about 1/2 inch (they will shrink when baked). Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet and bake until potatoes are fork-tender, about 30 minutes. Let cool about 10 minutes." The filling is then added and baked until the custard has set.

Martha Stewart makes a filling of just eggs, cream and herbs for this quiche, but I would like something more. Cheese and potatoes go well together. I think a custard with cheese, onions, and herbs would be a good filling, maybe even some ham. See Basic Quiche Recipe w/ Variations for a recipe for the egg custard and ideas for fillings.

FMM: I tried this, but found that the potatoes had spaces between them after cooking. The potatoes did not stick together and shrank up. Plus trying to get them to overlap at the bottom edges of the pan was almost impossible. I tried to press them together once par-baked, but I guess the oil and browning edges kept them from mashing together. I added ham, Swiss cheese and green onion. The quiche did come out of the pan okay, but I felt that a pastry crust would have been better with potatoes added as a filling ingredient, as that was what it tasted like. Emeril’s potato crust, which uses cooked, grated potatoes adds Parmesan cheese to them before browning in the oven. That may make the difference in the crusts. I would not make this again.