Pizza Rustica (Easter Pie) Recipe (2024)

Sarah... how would you know it was delicious when you didn't even make the recipe ...SMDH

This was delicious. I ended up halving the recipe since it was only for my boyfriend and myself. And in an effort to be somewhat healthy, we subbed a lot of the meat for vegetables: spinach and mushrooms. I also added garlic and oregano because I thought the subtraction of most of the meats would detract from the flavors.

This is almost exactly my grandmother's recipe. She got it from her mother-in-law who was from Italy. Two big diffs, we use "pot cheese" instead of ricotta and hard salami and sausage instead of pepperoni. Pot cheese is basically fresher, smoother ricotta and used to come in little baskets from our local deli. I've substituted ricotta in the lean years where I didn't have a good Italian deli, but lately our Shop-Rite deli has been supplying! Happy Easter!

My Neapolitan grandmother made this every Easter,but it was always with leftovers from the Easter feast. The story was that Easter Monday was an Italian holiday and families spent the day picnicking. This was was picnic fare. The only constant is the ricotta.. Chopped meats, cheeses, finely chopped vegetables, hard boiled eggs were added as available I’m not sure how much of the backstory is true, but it’s my story and the pie is delicious, so I’m sticking to it!

You basically made a quiche. Lol

A half recipe will leave some extra filling since a 10"x15" pie is 150 sq inches and a 9" pie is about 63.5 sq inches (3.14x4.5"x4.5" aka pi "r" squared). But half (or a tad more) should work for the crust since a 9" pie has more relative surface area than a square pan of that size. I used 3 1/3 cups flour, 3 eggs and a 1/2 lb butter with just dashes of salt. It worked out perfectly!

Pizza Chiena for the rest of us.

Ricotta is key to this Easter Pie. It’s not about easy. It’s about tradition.

We make with Hard Sausage, Hard Salami and Ham and basket cheese instead of provolone. I've tried with pepperoni and it really didn't taste good, it has an overwhelming flavor.

Wow! level of deliciousness. This one is definitely going into my rotation. I made it in a 9x9 pan, used 1/2 of the ingredients (a fine ratio for the smaller pan). Made the crust gluten-free, because I must not eat gluten. I would advise to follow the instructions, use the egg wash on the crust part way through the baking as in the instructions, keep it for the 3 days in the fridge and serve cold/room temp.

Made this yesterday for Easter and I used a springform pan instead of a rectangular baking dish. It looked gorgeous and tasted amazing, although the filling in the middle immediately fell out when I cut into the pie. If I make this again, I might add more eggs and substitute some of the ricotta. I might also make this the day before so the filling has more time to firm up. I ended up serving it about 4 hours after taking it out of the oven, but that was definitely not enough time.

ALTERNATIVE only: Make a big "Stromboli" with pizza dough (ie 2cups flour)fav-meats, any combination of meats chopped. and 1 lb provolone, real easy on the eggs, 1 pound of ricotta. Add grated cheeses. Mix together and spread mixture in center of dough. Stretch and warp the dough around the ingredients, it will look like a giant blimp, pinch together at the top, brush liberal amount of olive oil, bake at 420 for about 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Bada-Bing-Bada-Boom!

All of your suggestions are good except for the single crust part which would make this a quiche and not an traditional Easter pie. For the ricotta, find a real Italian deli that stocks the good stuff like Liuzzi Cheese made in New Haven and available at many locations in the NY, MA and CT area. Liuzzi is, if not the best, one of the top 3 best Italian-style cheese makers in the country.

I used pepperoni, prosciutto, sweet Italian saysage, sausage, and salami for meats. The crust was fairly simple and delicious . No leftovers remained from the table.

Oh, the memories. Pizza Chiena, as my family called it. My mom used thinly sliced meats and cheese from the Italian deli and layered them, with an egg mixture in between. It was about 4” high when she was done with it. We had it for dinner on Holy Saturday, then for the entire next week. Breakfast, snacks, any time we opened the refrigerator. Her concoction was somewhat different than this, but I’m sure this is wonderful. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

I now live in Rome .... and this is authentic! No, it's nothing like a French quiche. This is Italian... and delicious!!

Our family recipe has a simpler filling: ricotta filling, Italian sausage and boiled eggs. The dough is a bit different than what is shared here, and contains milk, giving the dough a smoothness and the baked crust a little extra richness and shine. Our recipe is baked in a sheet tray, rather than a deeper glass dish. Having made this for nearly 20 years, I have to say the 2 1/2 hour timing is on the short end. From start to finish, this usually takes me about 4 hours. Worth every minute!

The crust is phenomenal. I grated the butter while still cold to get some nice layering in the dough. the key is keeping it cold. The inside is also very good, though I slightly altered it with Italian sausage, proscuitto and pancetta (cook sausage and pancetta separately and then fold it into the cheese) rather than all cured/dried meats. Very good recipe. Heavy as a brick when you take that pan out of the oven

I did mix the flour/salt and butter in my Cuisanart. I did NOT add the 1 1/4 cup ice water - just added about 2 tablespoons as it became slimy. Otherwise I followed the recipe as directed — very nice. Reminded me of our trips to Italy and tasting at a local deli. Will make again but this time on the official Good Friday or Easter Sunday. I will wait a month or two before I have my cholesterol checked :-)

Made it, would not bother again. Heavy and overly salty (yes I followed the recipe). For the cost of the ingredients, not worth it.

If you search for this recipe in Italian cookbooks it will be listed as torta rustica, not pizza rustica, and of course there are variations. I'm not a fan of peperoni in this application. However, do make it, it is delicious!

This looks very yummy but can it be adapted to make a smaller version?

Plus 4 eggs

1.5x the eggs and cheese

I'd made this before per the recipe. This year, used smoked ham (have a great butcher who smokes their own pork), had prosciutto and salami. Needed a bit of a spicy kick, so added some cayenne for a little kick. Next time, may skip the salami and use liguica. Can taste very salty depending on the meats and cheeses used -smoked ham, while delicious, can be very salt-forward.

Sorry, but this tastes like ham and eggs with a pizza crust. Nothing Italian about it!

Don’t forget to add hard boiled eggs! And ready made pastry dough works fine.

My paternal grandparents were from Naples, maternal grandparents from Laurenzana, Basilicata. The Lucanian version, "U’ Pastizz ‘Rtunnar calzone”, is made with sliced pork (my grandmother made it & I make it with sausage meat). Less salt (nicer blending of tastes) than the Neapolitan version. Mozzarella, pecorino, eggs and either slabs of pork or sausage for filling. Traditionally, was for picnics on Easter Monday, but the family was large and got together on Easter to eat it.

There isn’t any such word as pizza gaine, gane, or any derivative of that word that doesn’t exist anywhere in the Italian language. The only thing that makes any sense my be the dialect calling pizza piena or stuffed pizza. The only thing I can think of is the word piena has gotten mangled through the generations. When I hear it called pizza gaine, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. I’ve had pizza rustica my entire life and now my grown children make it. It’s a wonderful tradition to hand down.

I helped my Italian grandmother make this (or rather a simplified version) on Good Friday many times before she passed away about 30 years ago. She used only ham, pepperoni, mozzarella, and swiss cheese in the filling. In the Italian neighborhood of Bridgeport, CT where she lived, all of her friends made their own versions of "pizza chiena" and shared them with each other, so on Easter visits we actually got to try a whole spectrum of variations.