One of the biggest pushes for sharing this recipe is to chat about chard. Whenever I ask people what one thing they wish they cooked more with, I get an overwhelming amount of ‘chard’ as the answer. It can be a tough green to like but it’s one of those ‘get to know’ type items. Meaning, once you get to know it, you become good friends.

To get you started, I’ll let you in on my relationship with this greenage. I like chard just barely-cooked OR completely cooked, beyond recognition. Chard, when cooked to an in-between stage, has an unappealing, almost slimy texture. It’s just not my thing.

And so, for this chard frittata, I cook the greens well. Beyond well, really. It melts into the onions and it’s the perfect companion for the quinoa and feta.

I love the flavor of caramelized onions but I’m in the camp that you can’t have true caramelized onions without a solid amount of time. Anything labeled as such but only tells you to cook onions for 20 minutes is just wrong. You need the gift of time to really get that perfect, sweet flavor.

However, I have a cheat and it’s perfect for when I want flavorful onions in less than 20 minutes. I cook the onions until soft and add a splash of balsamic vinegar. It’s definitely not the same flavor but cooking the onions a bit longer in the vinegar allows the vinegar to reduce and become a bit sweeter, helping the onions out.

You could always use pre-cooked caramelized onions (if you’re into batch/prep cooking). You could also just use regular cooked onions or shallots (equally as nice in this recipe).

Grains aren’t a normal frittata addition for most but they are almost a necessity in my kitchen. I don’t like an overly-eggy frittata. It’s why I don’t use a ton of milk in the base (in fact, you’ll see I use cream instead of milk too). Using grains really helps balance the egg to extra ratio.