I returned from a lab ski trip today (which turned into a snowshoeing trip since it was raining and the slopes were icy), and my hubby immediately requested I make him another protein-packed quiche. He has recently gotten very into weightlifting and is surviving on egg whites, chicken breasts, broccoli, spinach, and grapefruit for the time being. Poor guy. I came up with this quiche recipe several weeks ago to spice things up for him a bit and have been making one every week since then.
This quiche is made completely of egg whites and is packed with spinach and turkey bacon. I only needed to add a touch of blue cheese since a little goes a long way. The interesting part of this recipe is that instead of a standard pastry crust, I decided to develop a more nutritious crust made from chickpeas, whole wheat flour, and a touch of olive oil – I even managed to sneak some of his protein powder in it!
Protein-Packed Quiche with a Chickpea Crust
Printable Recipe
Ingredients:
1 15.5-ounce can chickpeas, drained
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup scoop protein powder
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 pieces turkey bacon
2 1/4 cups egg whites
1 cup milk
1 10-ounce package frozen spinach, thawed and well drained
1 ounce crumbled blue cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease a 9-inch pie pan. Pulse chickpeas, flour, protein powder, and olive oil in a food processor and spread dough evenly over the greased pie pan. Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes at 350ºF or until light golden brown.
Meanwhile, place bacon in a skillet and cook over medium-high heat until crispy. Remove from heat and crumble.
Whisk together the bacon, egg whites, milk, spinach, blue cheese, and salt in a medium bowl until smooth; pour into the pie pan over the prebaked crust. Bake at 350ºF for 40 minutes or until set. Makes 8 servings.
Nutrition: 202 calories, 7.7g fat, 4.3g fiber, and 17.0g protein per serving
Cost: $0.85 per serving
I love this quiche recipe because it has egg whites only and blue cheese – delicious!!!
This looks so good, I LOVE the idea of a chickpea crust! I also like that you used whole wheat flour. I can’t wait to try this one.
Holy cow, what a great invention! I never would have thought of using chick peas as the crust.
I’m not that huge of a spinach fan, but I can see making a quiche lorraine type quiche with the crust.
thanks for sharing that recipe!
Wow, you’re awesome! It looks delicious and nutitious. I would love to eat this and then go do some weight lifting. I need to bulk up a bit.
This looks so good, and the chickpea crust is ingenious! The possibilities are endless with this crust, any combo of fillings would be great. Do you think flour could substitute for the protein powder? I don’t think we have any protein powder and if we do it’s OLD (and vanilla flavored!)
love this, especially the crust!! although i’d go for goat cheese
Hi Meghan,
I think you could definitely substitute more flour for the protein powder – I’m sure that’s much more appealing to everyone but my crazy hubby
I think it would be fun to play around with adding different spices to the chickpeas as well!
I just love your different take on quiche!!! And I love anything everything with chickpeas! What a great idea!!
Thanks for visiting our blog! Come back anytime:) Glad I found yourss! I am loving the quiche!
Kerstin, I love the spinach throughout this quiche and I would have never thought of using chickpeas, but I bet it adds a nice richness to the dish. Wonderful!
Chickpea crust is so creative! What a nice wife to make something like this for your hubby!
What a great quiche! You can see the nice chunks of bacon in it. I like the use of the blue cheese as well.
This sounds great–especially the crust!
Great way to use the chickpeas.
Wow, this looks and sounds great!! Chickpea crust, so cool!!
Looks incredible! How many egg whites are in 2 1/4 cups?
Hi Leigh Ann! Many egg whites – there are 8-10 in a cup! I used the egg whites you can buy in a cartoon ready to go from Costco. In a traditional quiche, there are usually 4-5 eggs and 2 cups of milk, so you could start with 10 egg whites and up the amount of milk in this recipe as an alternative. My hubby wanted to stuff in as many as eggs whites as possible with this one
This looks so so good! Yum!
Great content. Looking for some nutrition materials when I stumbled across your site.
Bookmarked!
Wow – this looks great and what a creative idea for the crust. My 16 month old is obsessed with chickpeas and as a result, we’ve been eating them a lot more lately.
I’m looking forward to trying this out soon.
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