Quick quiche recipes for your packed lunch

A debate is raging among polite society over, sandwiches aside, the ultimate packed lunch item. A boiled egg dipped in celery salt? A sausage roll? The answer often comes down to practicalities: optimal serving temperature combined with the appliances at your disposal.

Unless you’re very lucky, your office probably doesn’t provide much more than a sparse tea station, surfaces stained with coffee rings and a perpetual sprinkling of sugar granules. Even if you’ve managed to source a clean teaspoon and mug during the morning rush for a cuppa to bring in to your 9am meeting, there’s still the inevitable game of Tetris as you struggle to cram your lunchbox into the communal fridge.

This is when one might look to the quiche, a bastion of packed lunch serenity, given its civilised indifference to refrigeration. Yes, these are truly best enjoyed at room temperature.

While making your own pastry might be a wholesome weekend undertaking, the ready-made variety makes light work of weekday quiche-making and is definitely the way to go.

Preheat the oven and fit the pastry into a tart tin, pricking the base with a fork to prevent it rising and causing filling spillages.

If your tart tin is on the smallish side (22cm) then 2-3 eggs will be necessary for the filling. Beat and combine them with a tablespoon of creme fraiche, and from thereon in, experiment with further additions at your leisure: feta and pre-roasted peppers; fried chorizo, paprika, and sun-dried tomatoes; thyme, canned tuna, and tomato puree; fried courgette, spinach and ricotta – they all make excellent and tasty quiches.

Bake for 35-40 minutes at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 until golden brown. If you’re cooking the night before, leave to cool on the counter overnight. If you’re baking this in the morning, cool for as long as possible before slicing and packing loosely in foil to allow steam to escape and prevent the pastry going soft.

Caroline Craig and Sophie Missing are authors of The Little Book of Lunch (Square Peg)