This wholesome vegan quiche is packed with healthy vegetables, and a decadent pie crust- yet the recipe is entirely egg-free, dairy-free, and even soy-free (no tofu)! Not to mention that this veggie quiche has an extremely customizable filling and can be enjoyed at breakfast, brunch, lunch, and special occasions!
Delicious, Vegetable-packed Vegan Quiche Recipe
If I were to do a poll to ask what people miss the most when first starting to eat a vegan diet, I’d hedge my bets that the answers would often include eggs and cheese.
However, there’s absolutely no reason that anyone should miss out on their favorite ‘eggy’ dishes, regardless of their chosen diet. With a carefully selected combination of ingredients, you can achieve a delicious eggless quiche that is still light and fluffy, with the familiar ‘eggy’ flavor that you love.
Not to mention that this veggie quiche is such a wonderful dish to pack in lots of healthy vegetables. Within this recipe, I’ve used onion, peppers, leek, and spinach to make a delicious spinach quiche. However, feel free to swap them out for your favorites, or whatever you have to hand.
What Is Quiche?
Traditionally, quiche is similar to an omelet (or omelette) or frittata that has been baked into a rich and flaky pastry crust. They can contain all varieties of fillings, including lots of vegetables, cheese, meats, and other proteins.
Unfortunately for vegans and those with dairy allergies, even the vegetarian versions are packed with eggs, cheese, and milk/cream. When it comes to vegan quiche, there are tons of tofu-based options available. However, for those who avoid soy-based products, then chickpea flour is your new best friend.
This chickpea flour quiche recipe is not only super delicious, but it is also wholly dairy-free, egg-free, and free of tofu. Plus, I even made a gluten-free quiche crust too!
The Secret Ingredient
This eggless quiche is completely transformed from the use of chickpea flour.
Chickpea flour, also referred to as garbanzo flour, besan flour, or gram flour is gluten-free, high protein, and creates a beautiful texture for the vegan quiche. When using chickpea flour, you also get to avoid the high cholesterol and fat levels found in eggs.
The results are a healthy tart that is super filling but still light- Precisely what I’m looking for!
Kala Namak
Another ingredient that can completely transform this dish is Kala Namak ( AKA black salt). This Indian spice has a delicious sulphuric ‘eggy’ flavor and is a wonder within a variety of vegan dishes.
In fact, the spice is so flavorful that it takes just a tiny pinch in a recipe. I talk more about this fantastic ingredient in this recipe for Vegan Tofu Scramble.
How To Make A Vegan Quiche
This easy quiche recipe is made up of just four simple steps. For the full ingredients list, measurements, and nutritional information, then please find the recipe card below.
Step 1: Prepare The Pie Crust
- Begin by preparing your flax egg by combining 1 tbsp of ground flax seeds and 3 tbsp of water into a small bowl and mixing well. Leave this aside for 5 minutes.
- When ready, add the flax egg, along with all other pie crust ingredients to a food processor and blend until a dough forms and is clumping together. Alternatively, add the ingredients to a large bowl and knead into a dough with your hands. Add a splash of extra cold water, if it feels a little dry.
- Next, roll the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge for around 30 minutes. During this time, you can move on to Step 2!
- Once chilled, remove the dough from the fridge, roll it out to fit the bottom of an 8-9″ Pie Pan. Press it into the pan without around 2 inches ( 5cm) of pastry up the sides of the tin. Place back in the fridge.
Step 2: Prepare The Vegetable Fillings
- While the dough rests in the fridge, you can prepare your veggies of choice.
- Heat a little vegetable oil in a large pan and saute the onion over medium hear just for a minute, to soften. Next, add the garlic, pepper, leek, spinach, and a pinch of salt.
- Saute the vegetables for a few minutes to soften and allow the vegetables to release their juices, then remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly.
- Squeeze the vegetables lightly to remove any remaining excess water. You can do this with your hands, within cheesecloth, or even through a sieve.
Step 3: Prepare The Chickpea ‘egg’ Batter
- Before you prepare the chickpea batter, turn on the oven to preheat to 430F ( 220C).
- To prepare the chickpea batter, mix the chickpea flour, 1 cup of plant-based milk or water, and the spices and mix well.
- In a medium saucepan, bring two cups of vegetable broth ( or water) to a boil and then slowly pour in the chickpea mixture while stirring continuously.
- Leave it to simmer over low heat for around 5-6 minutes, stirring frequently. During this time it will thicken up and is the key to the best taste and texture (an excellent tip I learned from Mary’s Kitchen Blog)
Step 4: Assemble & Bake
- When assembling, begin by adding the sautéed vegetables to the pie crust first (You could also mix them directly into the chickpea mixture, if preferred).
- Next, pour over the chickpea batter and top with halved cherry tomatoes.
- Bake in the oven for between 25-30 minutes ( this may take longer, depending on your oven- up to 45 minutes). It’s best to leave the quiche to cool completely as the chickpea batter will further solidify when cooling.
- You can then serve the eggless quiche warm or cold and garnish with your favorite herbs such as thyme, basil, or even a small pinch of Kala Namak ( black salt) for additional eggy flavor.
How To Store
This vegan quiche will last well for between 5-7 days when stored in an airtight container in the fridge. It is also freezer-friendly and can be stored in the freezer (wrapped in freezer bags) for around 3 months.
When ready to eat, this vegan spinach pie can be eaten cold or reheated in the oven or microwave.
Serving Suggestions
Whether eating this veggie quiche hot or cold, it is a wonderful addition to a hearty breakfast (breakfast quiche is a thing, right?!) / brunch spread alongside Chocolate Chip Pancakes or Savory Crepes, or Gluten-Free Waffles.
Or even as a light lunch along with some salad sides, including this Creamy German Cucumber Salad, Vegan Potato Salad, or Oil-free Vegan Pasta Salad.
Useful Tips & Variations:
- It is important to squeeze the liquid from your veggies before adding it to the quiche crust. Otherwise, you run the risk of a soggy crust.
- Baking time will vary depending on the oven used (electric vs. gas) and the size/ depth of the pie dish used.
- You can prepare the quiche crust in advance (for example, the night before). Just make sure that you wait until just before cooking to add the filling to avoid a soggy crust.
- If you’re running short on time, then you can use a pre-bought pie crust!
- Another crust substitution includes thinly sliced layers of potato. Alternatively, you can go completely crust-free like this veggie-filled Vegan Frittata.
- Rather than a single large vegan quiche, you could make this recipe into smaller mini quiches, using a muffin tin.
- This veggie quiche is incredibly versatile. Swap out any of the vegetables mentioned for your favorites. These include Mushrooms, broccoli, sweetcorn, asparagus, zucchini, potato, kale, etc. Just make sure to use the same amount of vegetables overall.
- You could also add some of your favorite vegan cheese or meat alternative.
- For an additional layer of flavor, spread a thin layer of tomato passata/sauce at the bottom of the quiche before adding the vegetables.
- This recipe is incredibly meal-prep friendly, perfect for preparing in advance and serving at gatherings, or taking to school/college/work.
THIS VEGAN QUICHE RECIPE IS:
- Plant-based
- Gluten-free
- Egg-free (cholesterol-free)
- Dairy-free
- Soy-free
- Can be made nut-free
- Hearty
- Meal-Prep friendly
If you give this tasty recipe a try, please leave a comment below, and don’t forget to tag @elavegan #elavegan on Instagram or Facebook if you take a picture of your dish.
Vegan Quiche
Ingredients
Pie crust
- 1 cup (140 g) gluten-free flour (*see recipe notes)
- 1/2 cup (60 g) almond flour (*see recipe notes)
- 1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax seeds + 3 tbsp water) (*see recipe notes)
- 4 tbsp (56 g) margarine or vegan butter
- 1/3 tsp sea salt
- cold water if needed
Chickpea Batter
- 1 cup (120 g) chickpea flour (garbanzo bean flour)
- 1 cup (240 ml) plant-based milk or water
- 2 cups (480 ml) vegetable broth
- 1/2 tbsp onion powder
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/3 tsp black pepper
- A pinch of turmeric
- A pinch of chili powder (optional)
Veggies
- 1/2 onion (chopped)
- 3 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1/2 pepper (chopped)
- 1 cup fresh spinach chopped
- 1 stalk leek
- Pinch of sea salt
- A handful of cherry tomatoes (halved)
- 1 tsp vegetable oil for frying
- Fresh thyme to garnish
- Pinch black salt (optional)
Instructions
Pie Crust
- To make the flax egg, put 1 tbsp ground flax seeds to a small bowl, add 3 tbsp water and mix with a whisk. Set aside for 5 minutes.
- Now transfer all ingredients for the pie crust to a food processor and blend until the dough clumps together. If you don't have a food processor, simply add all ingredients for the pie crust in a bowl and use your hands to knead the dough until it clumps together (don't knead too long). If the dough appears too dry, add a tiny bit of cold water. With the flour blend which I am using (see recipe notes) no water is needed!
- Roll the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and place it into the fridge. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, remove the dough from the fridge. Roll it out to fit the bottom of an 8 or 9-inch pie pan. Press it into the pan and about 2 inches (5 cm) up the sides. Put it back into the fridge.
Veggies
- While the dough rests in the fridge, you can prepare the veggies. Heat a little vegetable oil in a saucepan, add the onion and fry over medium heat for about 1 minute. Add garlic, pepper, leek, spinach, and a pinch of salt. Sauté for a few minutes until all the water evaporates. Let cool. If there is still water left, then squeeze it out as much as possible.
- Preheat oven to 430 degrees F (220 degrees C).
Chickpea batter
- In a bowl mix the chickpea flour, 1 cup of plant-based milk or water and the spice mix with a whisk.
- In a saucepan bring two cups of vegetable broth (or water) to a boil. As soon as it boils, slowly pour the chickpea mixture into the broth while stirring.
- Let simmer on low heat for 5-6 minutes and make sure to keep whisking frequently. It will get quite thick which is normal.
Assemble
- Add the sautéed vegetables to the pie crust first (or mix them directly into the chickpea mixture, if preferred).
- Now pour in the chickpea batter on top of the veggies and add the halved cherry tomatoes on top.
- Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes (depending on your oven it might take longer). It's best to let the quiche cool completely (preferably in the fridge) to set. It can be served cold or warm (you can heat it up in the microwave or in the oven). Garnish with fresh thyme leaves or basil and sprinkle a pinch of black salt (Kala Namak) on top for an eggy taste. Enjoy!
Notes
Video Of The Recipe
- I've used the following gluten-free flour mix: 1/2 cup rice flour (80 g) and 1/2 cup tapioca flour (60 g). However, you can use 140 grams (about a cup) of 1 to 1 Bob’s Red Mill baking flour (gluten-free) instead.
- To make the recipe nut-free, you can use ground sunflower seeds instead of almond flour.
- You can use ground chia seeds instead of ground flax seeds.
- Watch the video above in the blog post.
- Recipe serves 8. Nutrition facts are for one serving.
Nutrition information is an estimate and has been calculated automatically
Simple and Delicious Vegan Cookbook by ElaVeganCLICK HERE to order!If you are using Pinterest, feel free to pin the following photo:
Will this work without the piecrust ie will it set well enough to be able to be sliced & served nearly without the piecrust. I’m trying to replicate Australian zucchini slice which is crustless
I never tried it but I think someone commented that she made the quiche without crust in a muffin tin and it worked fine. 🙂
Thank you Ela (again ????)!
Quiche is delicious!
Happy it turned out delish! Thanks for your great feedback Mirta. 🙂
Very nice texture. I pre baked the crust and then I put it in the fridge for two days and the texture of the chickpea batter was very silky like tofu. I wonder if you can make a vegan milk tart using chickpea flour?
I am so glad you liked the recipe, Cornelia! I am not sure if you can make a vegan milk tart with chickpea flour. In my opinion, the chickpea flour taste wouldn’t be that good in a dessert. 🙂
Oh my word this is gorjusss!!! The very best, tastiest vegan quiche filling I’ve found, and yes I sling in a pinch of kala namak for the eggy flvour and it works so well. Wonderfully soft, smooth texture. Fantastic served with a baked potato and a big heap of salad. Thank you so much, Ella!
You are very welcome, Suzanne! I am so glad it turned out delicious. 🙂
Bonjour
Je n’avais pas de farine de pois chiches et j’ai pris de la farine de tapioca. Malheureusement le dessus était cuit mais pas linterieur ? Avez vous une idée pourquoi ? Je l’ai laisse 45 min de plus .
D’avance merci 🙂
Hi Catherine! You changed the main ingredient of the quiche by using tapioca flour. The recipe does NOT work with tapioca flour though. Please try it again with chickpea flour. 🙂
This was amazing! I’d highly recommend this recipe 🙂
This vegan quiche has the best texture! I’m thinking about going vegan and now I know won’t miss normal quiches at all!
Yay, that’s awesome Louise! I am so happy you loved it. 🙂
Cooked this for dinner tonight, the taste was great. We were all impressed.
Thank you x
I’ve never made pastry from scratch before and mine seemed a little tough. Not light. Any suggestions please?
Will definitely be making this again.
Hi Tracey, I am so glad it turned out yummy! I think if you handle the pastry too long, it can turn out tough. It definitely works better with regular flour (in case you aren’t gluten-free). 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe, I used to bake a lot of quiches before becoming vegan and I could never find a good way to replace the proper egg texture (even the egg replacer were no good).
I used a freshly home-milled 1:1 hazelnuts:hemp seeds flour to replace the almond flour, a chia egg (with 2.5 tbsp of water) and freshly home-milled chickpea flour and coconut milk for the batter with onion, garlic, spinach, courgette and a bit of sweet potato as vegetables and the result was amazing.
And adding the nutritional yeast to the vegetal milk even gives a delicate chesse-like sub-flavour to the quiche, which is great!
As for the setting, I don’t know if it was the fresh flour or having waited for the quiche to cool down to room temperature before putting it in the fridge but the quiche was baked at 1PM, back to room temperature at 3PM and already set by 8PM, which was great for dinner.
Thank you again for this amazing recipe that will definitiely be one of my new favourites!
Awesome! Thanks so much for your thorough and helpful feedback, I really appreciate it. 🙂
Thanks for the great recipe! I have missed quiches a lot…
I would say that…
– The vegetable broth is necessary as my flavour was not quite good enough.
– The margarine needs to be increased to 100g as otherwise the pastry is too dry
– Also, it says ‘use your hands to knead the dough until it clumps together’, but this part refers to ‘rubbing’ the flour and margerine together 🙂
Other than that, I was very happy with the recipe!! I used brocolli, basil, leaks and spinach and it was super tasty!
Thanks for your feedback. 🙂
Had this for dinner last night and it was an instant hit – everyone wanted seconds. I made it with normal pastry – plain (AP) and wholemeal flour as I didn’t have almond flour but I will definitely try your version next time. The sauce was easy to make and was lovely and creamy & so much better than using tofu..
Hi Sharon, I am glad it was a success! Thanks so much for your great feedback. 🙂
HELP! In your video the pastry base is baked for 10 minutes before adding the veg and sauce, I can’t find this in your recipe – so do I or don’t?? Thank
Hi Sharon, it’s not pre-baked. You put it in the fridge (it’s a fridge icon, not oven icon) while you make the veggie mixture.
LOL, thank you – I see that now. Think it was the ‘forking’ that confused me.???? Have made it & will be having it for dinner tonight so will come back & rate it tomorrow.
No worries, Sharon. I hope it turned out delicious. 🙂
This very good! I don’t understand people who said it didn’t set up properly. My batter was thick throughout and I would have eaten hot instead of room temperature if I wouldn’t have read the reviews. Much better hot! I used spinach, mushrooms, bell pepper, and broccoli. Great recipe! Thanks!
Thanks for your great feedback, Melody! I am glad you loved the recipe. 🙂
Hello, good recipes but I am french and quiche its not like omelette.
Its really different ….
However your recipe seems really good ????????????
Hey Lolita, thanks for your comment. I hope you will give my recipe a try. 🙂
Hi! Thank you once again for the amazing recipe. Incase if we don’t have the chickpea flour, what’s the alrernative? 🙂
Polenta (cornmeal) might work as well but I haven’t tried it in this recipe. I definitely recommend using chickpea flour though. You can get it in Indian stores or order it online. 🙂
Hi!
So I tried this recipe yesterday. I thought I did everything right and even the texture came out as desired. However once we got to eat it tasted very average and the crust seemed undercooked. We baked it in the oven for 30 mins and put it over night in fridge post that as per instructions. Is there any fix we could do? May bake it for another 30 mins in the oven? Also the crust was mixed using tapioca, rice flour and almond flour as per your instructions.
Also I did put it back in the oven for another 30 mins. The rawish taste of the flour is not going away. Any suggestions?
Hello Sneha, as regards the filling, did you use polenta instead of chickpea flour?
Also, have you squeezed out the veggies really well? Maybe they had too much moisture left and therefore, the crust turned out a little soggy and not crispy!
I made this last night, baked it off and let it set in the kitchen over night based off reccomendations in the other posts. Instead of GF flour (because we didn’t have any) we grounded a 1/2 cup oat flour and 1/2 cup of wholewheat flour, although the crust was a little tricky to transfer from rolling it out into the pan (it crumbled a bit) the flavour meshed SO well with the quiche, i think I would continue to make it with that flour combo (just for a little extra added health benefit). Thank you so much for the delicious recipie! I highly recommend!
That sounds great, Nell! So glad it was a success. Thanks for your feedback. 🙂
Fabulous recipe. Much nicer than using egg for vegans and non vegans. Just tastes and holds so much better. Be repeating this for very easy weekday teas and posh dinners. Thank you so much for sharing
My pleasure, Viv! I am so glad you like it. 🙂
I’ve made this recipe around 6-8 times in the past 2 months ( I’ve also made 2 other Soy free, vegan quiches for comparison and this was the winner by a long shot! ) and my family is obsessed with it. I know that this will be one of our go to recipes for years to come. Thank you so much for sharing it????
Aww, that’s wonderful, Alison! Thanks so much for your awesome feedback! 🙂
Hi Ela,
I’ve cooked it for 45 minutes and the inside is quite liquid, had to take it off because it was as burning. I followed the recipe right. Will it solidify after it cools down?
Hello Matilde! Yes, it will firm up once it cools. 🙂
Ah but it’s not chickpea free! And chickpeas are what I can no longer eat after throwing up 9 times some years ago now. It’s such a shame so many recipes use chickpeas and chickpea flour. Although the flour does impart a particular and noticeable flavour anyway.