Nettle Quiche with Cheddar Cheese {gluten-free}

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This delicate Nettle Quiche with Cheddar Cheese makes the most of the first of spring's nettles luxuriously with a good cheddar to make a glorious tart in beautiful flaky pastry.

this recipe

If you are up for a bit of very easy foraging, then between March and early April is the perfect time to hunt, gather and eat nettles. That’s right, stinging nettles. Granted the ‘stinging’ part of their name doesn’t make them sound the most appealing prospect but I urge you to give them a try. In early Spring nettles are plentiful and everywhere. The freshly sprouted nettle leaf tops are what we are looking for, they are sweet and delicate and can be substituted in almost any recipe that calls for spinach.

Why nettles?

Nettles have the most protein of any green, including broccoli and spinach. And now we’re all being ordered to eat 7-a-day, I think I need to bring something new to the table. I don’t think they even do 7 different types of fruit and veg at my Sainsbury’s Local, so gathering up a bit of free greenery crammed with nutrients seems like a good way to pack that veg into my diet.

How to pick nettles

You should pick nettles before they are waist high. When you go nettle picking wear heavy-duty kitchen gloves - not the flimsy food grade gloves as the stingers are tricksy and somehow manage to wheedle into the thin plastic gloves. Take a good long pair of scissors and a large carrier bag. In order to garner the 200g of nettle leaves required for this recipe you will need to fill a whole carrier bag with nettle tops. Not the hoary old timers that are the size of your palm but the fresh shoots from the top of the nettles.

How to prepare the nettles

• Fill up your kitchen sink with water, put on your rubber gloves and dunk the nettles in.
• Swish the nettles around to wash out the grit and bugs. Pluck each nettle from the water, snip off the leaves using scissors and weigh until you reach 200g nettle leaves.
• Plunge the nettles into a large saucepan filled with boiling salted water. Bring the water back to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes.

The sting is subdued within the first 30 seconds of cooking so after this you can discard your rubber gloves and use your hands. The first time you do this you do tend to think the whole world is playing a bit of a joke and you are just about to get your innocent little hands completely ravished. But trust me, the nettles are perfectly placid by this point so feel free to naked up those paws.

The resulting quiche is lovely and mellow but with a gorgeously distinctive nettle flavour. Choose a very light cheddar as you don't want to overpower the nettles. I’m all about the bacon salt so I recommend seasoning the tart filling with a touch of this amazing ingredient. If you haven’t yet succumbed to its delights then normal salt will do just fine.

Serving suggestions

Like any self-respecting British quiche it is delicious warm with a handful of oven baked chips. Also..

• The Best Homemade Coleslaw
• English Mint Potato Salad
• French Grated Carrot Salad

More quiche recipes you’ll love! 

• Stilton Quiche with Chestnut and Cranberry
• Easy Gluten-Free Cheese Quiche

I urge you to give this Nettle Quiche with Cheddar Cheese a try. If you do then please leave a comment below and give the recipe a rating which helps others find the recipe on Google. If you then go on to use this recipe as a launch pad for your own culinary creation then I’d also love it if you’d share it and tag me on Instagram. It is so lovely for me to see your versions and variations of my recipes.

Nettle Quiche with Cheddar Cheese {gluten-free}

Georgina Hartley

This delicate quiche makes the most of the first of Spring's nettles luxuriously mixed with a good cheddar to make a glorious gluten-free tart in beautiful flaky pastry.

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Prep Time 1 hour hr

Cook Time 50 minutes mins

Total Time 2 hours hrs 20 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine British

Servings 6 people

Calories 503 kcal

Ingredients

  

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For the pastry*:

• ▢ 80 g rice flour
• ▢ 25 g oat flour
• ▢ 45 g buckwheat flour
• ▢ 30 g cornflour
• ▢ 15 g tapioca starch
• ▢ 15 g ground chia seeds
• ▢ ½ teaspoon sea salt
• ▢ 115 g cold unsalted butter - cut into very thin slices
• ▢ 1 egg - medium, lightly beaten
• ▢ 2-4 tablespoons iced water
• ▢ 2 tablespoons gluten-free flour for rolling out

For the filling:

• ▢ 200 g nettle leaves
• ▢ 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks - medium
• ▢ 200 g crème fraiche
• ▢ 1 tbsp chives
• ▢ 100 g mellow cheddar - grated

Equipment

• ▢ 20 cm round tart tin with high sides

Instructions

 

Pastry

• In a large mixing bowl combine the flours, chia seeds and salt.
• Rub the butter into the flour in between your fingertips so it resembles very rough breadcrumbs then stir in the beaten egg with a fork.
• Add the water 1 tablespoon at a time and start to bring the dough together with a pastry scraper. It should start to form quite quickly.
• Tip the dough onto the work surface and quickly bring the ball into a round ball with your hands. You don’t really need to work the pastry as there’s no gluten to activate. The pastry should still be a little sticky.
• Wrap the pastry ball in greaseproof paper and flatten it slightly.
• Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
• Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
• Dust the work surface with a gluten-free flour blend then roll the pastry out into a circle large enough to line a 20cm tart tin.
• Once you have lined the pastry in the tin and neatened the edges with a knife, place greaseproof paper over the pastry, so it comes up over the sides, then fill the tin with baking beans.
• Place in the oven for 20 minutes. Take out of the oven then remove the baking beans and parchment and brush the surface of the pastry with the beaten egg.
• Place back in the oven for a final five minutes to seal the pastry. Remove from the oven and leave to cool to room temperature before adding the filling.

Filling

• Place your nettle leaves in a large saucepan of salted boiling water. Bring back to the boil then simmer for 2 minutes.
• Drain the nettle leaves and douse in cold water to stop them cooking any further. When cool enough to handle, ball up the nettle leaves and squeeze out the excess water. Chop finely then set aside.
• In a large bowl whisk together the eggs and egg yolks with the crème fraiche.
• Add the chives, then the cheddar, then the nettle leaves. Season with plenty of salt and pepper or bacon salt if you have it.
• Pour the filling into the tart shell and place back in the oven for 25-30 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and leave to cool to room temperature before trimming the edges off the pastry and taking it out of the tin. Serve warm.

Notes

*Pastry recipe adapted from Flaky Pie Dough in Alanna Taylor-Tobin's Alternative Baker

This recipe was updated in 2017 to be gluten-free, so the resulting pastry will not be as light in colour as those in the photos.

Nutrition

Calories: 503kcalCarbohydrates: 32gProtein: 12gFat: 37gSaturated Fat: 22gCholesterol: 186mgSodium: 347mgPotassium: 262mgFiber: 5gSugar: 1gVitamin A: 1945IUVitamin C: 0.5mgCalcium: 340mgIron: 1.8mg

Have you tried this recipe?Head to the comment section and let me know what you think!