Scrambled Burger Quiche is my take on one of my favorite meals. Many years ago, we used to go to a restaurant that had something called Scrambled Burgers. I loved them, being a mixture of ground beef, spinach, onion, and cheese. I thought that combination would make a wonderful quiche.
What's on Your Plate
This quiche takes the beef, mushroom, spinach, and cheddar of a scramble burger and bakes them into a blind-baked crust with a savory custard. It serves eight, can be made the night before, and reheats well for breakfast, brunch, or dinner.
About the Food
This quiche started from the same idea as the Scramble Burger: beef, mushrooms, spinach, and cheddar cooked together until the flavors come together like a burger without the bun. The burger came first. This quiche takes those same ingredients and gives them a French treatment instead, baking them into a blind-baked crust with a savory egg custard rather than folding them into scrambled eggs.
The two recipes are not identical. The burger uses ground sirloin and a quick sauté finished with butter. This quiche uses ground beef, a splash of dry sherry with the mushrooms, and a custard built from eggs, cream, and milk that sets firm around the filling as it bakes. Same family of flavors, different technique entirely.
Why This Recipe Works
Blind baking the crust matters here because the filling brings real moisture with it. Beef, sautéed mushrooms, and wilted spinach all release liquid as they cook, and a raw crust cannot hold up against that much moisture in the oven. Baking the crust partway first, before the filling ever goes in, gives it a head start so it stays crisp instead of turning soggy underneath.
The custard ratio does the rest of the work. Eggs, cream, and milk together set firm enough to hold a hearty filling like this one without turning watery or falling apart when sliced, while still staying tender rather than rubbery.
$1.00 vs $20.00
A Note About Blind Baking
If you have never heard of blind baking, it means partially baking a pie crust before adding any filling. You will want to do this any time your filling has a lot of liquid in it, and this quiche definitely qualifies.
You can buy blind baking beads at a gourmet shop or online, and they will run you anywhere from $6.00 to $20.00. Or you can use plain old dried beans, which cost about a dollar and work exactly the same way. Mine are about 10 years old at this point. Be frugal. Choose beans.
For the full method and photos, see How to Blind Bake Crust for Quiche.
Let's make Scrambled Burger Quiche!
It seems like an awful lot of spinach, but spinach cooks down very much. You want about a cup of cooked spinach for this. You could use frozen spinach, but the fresh spinach just tastes so much fresher and better. One large bag should be just about how much you need.
If you don't like mushrooms, you can omit them. If you like tomato on your burger, by all means, add some fresh, chopped tomato. Onion lover? Add some chopped onion to the mix. This really is the kind of recipe you can make your own.
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Scrambled Burger Quiche
Equipment
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Ingredients
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 1 tablespoon shallots, minced
- 1 teaspoon dry sherry
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- ¼ lb ground beef
- 4 cups fresh spinach leaves, loosely packed
- 1 cup cheddar cheese, not white, grated
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup cream
- 1 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- ¼ teaspoon Tabasco sauce
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg, grated fresh
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- 1 blind-baked pie crust
Instructions
- Have ready a quiche pan to blind bake the crust. If you don't have a lot of time or patience, a store-bought roll out pie crust is fine. To blind bake, prick the crust with a fork several times, then put some wax or parchment paper over the crust, and fill with dried beans. Bake in a preheated 375-degree oven until the crust starts to brown, about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, then remove the beans by lifting out the wax paper. Set the beans aside to save for next time. The crust is ready.
- Melt the butter in a large sauté pan. Add the shallots and sauté until translucent. Add the mushrooms, making sure they are well covered with the butter, then add the sherry and continue to sauté until they are lightly browned on all sides.
- Add the beef, and break up, then sauté until all the beef is not pink. Add the spinach, and cook down, stirring constantly. The spinach will wilt considerably.
- Remove from the heat, and put in prepared blind-baked pie crust. Top with the cheese.
- Mix together the remaining ingredients and pour over the mixture in the quiche pan.
- Bake in the oven at 375° until the cheese melts and the quiche rises slightly out of its pan, about 30 minutes . Remove from the oven and cool before serving.
Nutrition
Serving and Storage
Serving
Serve this quiche warm or at room temperature; both work well. A simple green salad on the side helps balance the richness of the custard and cheese.
Storing
This quiche is genuinely a make-ahead dish. Bake it, let it cool completely, then cover and refrigerate it whole or in slices for up to three days. Reheat individual slices in the oven or air fryer until warmed through, or reheat the whole quiche loosely covered in a low oven. Avoid the microwave if you can, since it tends to make the crust soggy and the custard rubbery.
Common Mistakes and Gotchas
- Do not skip the blind bake. A raw crust under this much filling will turn soft and undercooked in the middle.
- Let the beef, mushroom, and spinach mixture cool slightly before pouring the custard over it, so the eggs do not start cooking on contact and scramble instead of setting evenly.
- Do not overfill the crust. Leave a little room at the top, since the custard puffs slightly as it bakes.
- If you swap in a watery vegetable like zucchini or tomato, cook off the extra moisture first, or the custard will not set properly.
FAQ
Can I use a store-bought crust?
Yes. A store-bought roll-out pie crust works fine here if you are short on time. Just be sure to blind bake it the same way you would a homemade crust.
Can I make this ahead of time?
Yes. This quiche reheats well, which makes it a good make-ahead option for brunch or a busy morning.
Can I swap the beef for something else?
Yes. Ground turkey or a plant-based ground meat both work well in place of the beef.
Is this the same as the Scramble Burger?
Not exactly. Both use beef, mushroom, spinach, and cheddar, but the Scramble Burger is a scrambled egg dish, while this quiche bakes the same flavors into a French-style custard and crust.
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