You may remember that a few months ago Jones Dairy hired me to develop some recipes for their website, using their delicious gluten free sausage products. One of the recipes I came up with was a quiche, using their gluten free mild breakfast sausage rolled out as the crust. It came out great (I’ll post links to the recipes when they go live over on the Jones Dairy site), and I wanted to use the same crust concept for some other low carb recipes here on IBIH. Since I still had some rolls of the sausage they sent me to use in the recipes, I decided to fool around with it this weekend.
I chopped and sauteed the rainbow chard with eggs, ricotta and mozzarella cheese (among other things) and it made a delicious filling for the sausage crust. I tried it several different ways, and my favorite was made in the mini muffin pan as shown in the photo above. It can also be made in regular cupcake size, tart size, or in one large pie that can be cut into wedges. If you are vegetarian you can omit the sausage crust altogether and it’s still very tasty.
The mini muffin size make a perfect one-bite party appetizer, while the cupcake size is perfect for a quick breakfast or lunch when you’re in a hurry. I even enjoyed them cold, right out of the fridge, though hot is preferable.
You may find that you need a little extra sausage if you are making the mini-size, rather than the large pie, because the sausage to filling ratio is a little different. These are insanely filling by the way, which is great because just a few bites keep me full for hours! Hope you guys like them and as always I love hearing your feedback in the comments!
Swiss Chard & Ricotta Pie (LC & GF)
- Yield: 1 pie, 12 muffins, or 24 mini muffins
- Category: Entree
- Cuisine: Vegetable tart/pie
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup onion, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 8 cups swiss chard, chopped
- 2 cups whole milk ricotta cheese
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella
- 1/4 cup shredded parmesan
- 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 lb mild sausage
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan and add the onions and garlic. Cook for several minutes or until soft. Add the swiss chard (or other greens of your choice) and cook for about 5 minutes until the leaves are wilted and the stems have softened. Add the nutmeg and season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
- Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. Stir in the sauteed greens.
- If making the large pie, you will have to roll out your sausage or press it into the pie tin uniformly. Then pour in the filling, place on a cookie sheet (to catch any dripping oil from the sausage) and bake at 350 degrees (F) for about 30 – 35 minutes or until firm.
- If making the muffins, use your fingers to press the sausage into place, lining the cups about 1/4 inch thick. Then spoon in your filling – don’t overfill because they will puff up slightly when baking. Make sure you bake these on a cookie sheet, as the grease from the cooking sausage will overflow the cups and you will have a mess on your hands if you don’t put something underneath it to catch it! Also, by all means add more cheese on top if you so desire.
Notes
Approximate nutrition information WITH sausage crust:
Per serving (one 8th) of pie: 344 calories, 27g fat, 4g net carbs, 23g protein
Per standard sized muffin: 230 calories, 18g fat, 2.6g net carbs, 16g protein
Per mini muffin: 115 calories, 9g fat, 1.3g net carbs, 8g protein
Approximate nutrition information WITHOUT sausage crust:
Per serving (one 8th) of pie: 200 calories, 15g fat, 4g net carbs, 15g protein
Per standard sized muffin: 134 calories, 10g fat, 2.6g net carbs, 10g protein
Per mini muffin: 67 calories, 5g fat, 1.3g net carbs, 5g protein
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Are the cooking times different for the mini muffin, muffin, vs full pie?
Just made this for our New Years breakfast as I am trying to cut out sugar and carbs – made it in a glass casserole dish, used precooked Applegate Farms breakfast patties and sliced them in half thickness wise to end up with 12 thin pre cooked sausage patties which I spread across the bottom of the casserole dish. I could tell by the ingredients that this would be a mild tasting dish so I added a few sun dried tomatoes and a little crumbled goat cheese on top to kick it up a notch…. wait for it…. AWESOME!!! Very tasty and good for you!! Thank you for helping me kick off the New Year with a healthy alternative!!!
This is the dumbest recipe!! The sausage did not get done and the whole thing was ruined. Feeling disappointed
Just wondering if I could use frozen spinach? Thanks, Lee
I just made these for my breakfasts this week. Stole a snack, because they look and smell so good. They are fantastic! And very easy!
These are really good. I made them in muffin tins with breakfast sausage. I used spinach and added chopped mushrooms and bacon
Thanks for the recipe
★★★★
These are amazing! I had a bunch of extra batter too like some of the other commenters below so I made veggie muffins with the rest of it, and both are delicious! I also used baby spinach since I couldn’t get chard, and I added sprinkles of paprika on the top for a little extra flavor. Thanks so much for this recipe!
I have made these a number of times now, and my whole family absolutely loves them! However, it was not until this morning as I ventured back here to double check on some of the ingredient ratios that I realized you put the sausage IN THE CUPS UNCOOKED! What a revelation for me…I had wondered how you got the cute little “baskets” of sausage look. I pre-cook mine and smoosh it down into the cups. It doesn’t have the same effect, but still tastes good. I am going to try it your way next and save a step.
Delicious and such an easy breakfast choice. My husband also likes them.
In comparing the F/C/P and calories from MFP with those on the recipe, my batch came out with much higher numbers. MFP give me 407 calories, 32g fat, 4g carbs, and 24g protein and I got 15 muffins out of the recipe. I used spinach instead of the chard but I don’t think that would make a significant difference. So, don’t know which numbers to log.
I find mfp unreliable so I add everything up myself, but if you plugged in specific brands that you were Using it may account for the difference. Part skim ricotta is different from full fat, some sausage is higher in sugar, etc. I would go with your own numbers to be on the safe side!
Thanks, Mellissa. I was going to redo MFP using my own numbers and see what I get. Regardless, this is my new go-to breakfast – easy and oh so yummy. My husband, who does not do LCHF, uses them to make an egg/sausage sandwich for breakfast.
I recalculated nutrients using my own numbers. The results were more in line with yours. Thanks for the tip about MFP. From now on I’ll calculate my own recipe nutrients!
Also I baked the meat curst first, drained off the fat and then topped with the filling and baked. Perfect!
This was really delicious! I used italian sausage and made it as one pie. I also used kale, which is my thing. Definitely in rotation for me
My oven runs hot, but the pie was soup after 40 minutes. I increased the temperature to 380 and after 10 more minutes it was still soupy. I’m guessing “30-35 minutes or until firm” actually means “1 hour or more.” Too much cheese, maybe? Maybe more eggs, less ricotta would cook better?
I love swiss chard and am always on the lookout for more recipes that use it. Made these last night and immediately ate three! I loved them, though found the ricotta I used a bit grainy, so next time I’ll try a different brand. I erred on the underside when measuring out the cheeses, and I still had enough filling for several extra ‘muffins’ which I just made in ramekins. I love that the sausage causes the muffins to slide ride out – no sticking! It was great to just reheat a couple for breakfast. Next time I’ll double the recipe and try freezing some – great idea!
These look so good and I am thinking of making them, but looks like it makes quite a bit. Did you ever freeze them? Just wondering if they would still be ok. Thanks so much!
They freeze great Cristina!
We made these today and they are delicious! So we could do a side-by-side taste test, we made them in a muffin tin, half with mild sausage and half with Italian sausage, and we all preferred the Italian. It would also be good with hot Italian. Great recipe, thanks for sharing!!
I followed as direct and did the “pie” version. Unsure why after 35 mins of oven time as directed and I came out with raw sausage and that wasn’t cooked all the way through. Pre-heated as usual, used pie pan, used mild sausage, cooked the 35 to make sure…yikes!
Sorry Samantha, every oven is different so it’s really hard to gauge from a recipe. I hope you were able to just cook it longer and eventually eat it!
I made these last night but they weren’t all that flavourful. I did use Spinach instead of chard, so maybe there’s a flavour booster to add to the mix to make up for the less punchy greens??
Sausage as crust was tasty, but harder to get evenly into the muffin cups than i anticipated. Maybe takes practice?
Good advice about the baking tray to catch the juices. Even my tall, silicon, muffin tray was bubbling to the brim
You can add more nutmeg or even some cayenne – a sharper cheese, whatever flavors you like that go with spinach I guess. The chard does have a distinct flavor so that may have been missing. And yes, the sausage crust takes a few tries to get the hang of it! Hope your next batch is more flavorful and thanks for the feedback!
So if I want to do the sausage crust, how is this done? I don’t want to sound stupid, but didn’t see how it was done (unless I am missing something)…
Do you mean the crust for the muffins? If so, look at the second paragraph. Somehow I missed this too, but the directions are there!
Did anyone have a bunch of filling left when making the muffins?
I’ve already re-bought your book XO
Oh yum. I can’t wait to try these. I think they will be perfect for Christmas Eve. Thanks Mellissa.
This looks really delicious!
Great idea to use the sausage meat as a crust for the quichy things!
Mellissa I have just requested a refund for my purchase of your cookbook. Please don’t be dismayed. I mucked up my Amazon account (ended up with two) and didn’t want to lose my books. Refunding is the only way to fix it – once that is done I will re-order your book on the correct account. Regards Janet K XO