Sausage, Wild Rice & Red Bell Pepper Flourless Quiche

My Number One Fan found this delicious flourless quiche recipe on the Tasty Kitchen website for a light supper one evening, but I had the leftovers as breakfast rolled up in a soft flour tacos.  This would be fine as a traditional quiche, too.  Just fill a frozen pie shell with this recipe and modify your baking time.  In fact, you should probably partially bake the pie shell first for maybe 15 minutes, and then fill the pie shell with this quiche mixture and finish baking per the recipe.  The longest time for preparing the ingredients is cooking the wild rice, which takes a good hour.

Wild rice isn’t actually rice, or related botanically to what we traditionally know as rice, but rather a wild grass grain that is indigenous to North America.  It is sometimes hard to find alone and often is mixed and packaged with brown rice.  I think that would do with this recipe in a pinch, but try for 100% wild rice.  The nutty flavor of the wild rice is really what makes this dish so delicious.  You can use regular pork sausage, turkey sausage or even bacon as your breakfast meat, and you could also experiment with different kinds of cheese such as cheddar or Swiss.  When eaten as a meal for dinner, the perfect accompaniment is a Marinated Cherry Tomato Salad.  Click here to get the recipe.

Ingredients
1-1/2 cup well drained, cooked wild rice
1-1/2 cup crumbled breakfast sausage or turkey sausage
7 beaten eggs
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1-1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 bunch fresh spinach leaves (or one package of frozen spinach , thawed and well drained)
1 onion, finely diced and sauteed for ten minutes in a little butter
1/2 cup chopped roasted bell peppers (like, Mezzetta)
non-stick cooking spray (like, Pam)
salt & pepper to taste

The Recipe
Cook wild rice according to the directions on the package, and make sure you’ve added enough salt to the boiling water.  Drain the rice well if you have any residual water in the cooking pot. The rice kernels should be fully opened and the rice al dente. Saute the onion in a little butter until just starting to caramelize, about ten minutes.

You can roast your own bell peppers, but the store-bought jarred varieties, if packed in water, will do just fine.

Combine all ingredients well, folding in the spinach last.  If you use frozen spinach instead of fresh, make sure you have drained it well by rolling it up in paper towels and squeezing out the excess water.

Pour the mixture into a quiche dish coated with the non-stick cooking spray.  Bake at 375 degrees for 50-55 minutes.  The eggs should be fully set and the top and edges of the quiche should be golden browned.