Sun-Dried Tomato Orzo Salad
Sun-Dried Tomato Orzo Salad: I don't think you could pack any more flavor into a pasta salad. A great side dish or a really nice weekday lunch option.
Sun-Dried Tomato Orzo Salad
Jump to RecipeI once Googled “How many pastas are there?” and was given an answer of 350 pastas. That seems a bit on the short end to me. I feel like I have that many pasta options just in my local grocery store these days! The point is that if you are just sticking with your normal few favorites, you are probably missing out.
I’m always surprised that more people don’t use orzo so here’s my latest plea to get you to purchase and make some of what is quickly becoming one of my favorite pasta shapes. I like it because it’s flexible enough to serve with sauce, like spaghetti, but also works great in pasta salads, like this sun-dried tomato orzo salad.
This is a fast recipe, but the flavors are BIG. The key to making it work is to find the jars of sun-dried tomatoes in oil and use the tomatoes AND the oil in the jar for the pesto.
Sun-Dried Tomato Orzo Salad
- Serves:
- Serves 6
- Prep Time:
- Cook Time:
- Total Time:
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I don’t think you could pack any more flavor into a pasta salad. A great side dish or a really nice weekday lunch option.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Cook orzo pasta according to instructions in salted water. When pasta is al dente, reserve some of the pasta cooking water, drain and rinse the pasta with cold water.
- In a small food processor, combine the jarred sun-dried tomatoes plus any oil in the jar, garlic, lemon juice, and walnuts. Pulse until mixture is in a rough paste.
- Stir sun-dried tomato mixture into the orzo. If the mixture seems dry, add pasta water by the 1/4 cup until it smooths out.
- Finally, fold in fresh arugula and parmesan cheese. Taste and season with salt and pepper to your liking.
Serve at room temp or chilled. Leftover pasta salad will keep great for 4-5 days. If you are storing for more than 24 hours, leave out the arugula until you are eating it so it doesn’t get too wilted.
Sun-Dried Tomato Orzo Salad
Here’s that orzo stuff!
This pasta cooks pretty fast so keep an eye on it. If you overcook it it’ll get really mushy. No good!
Once it’s cooked, reserve some of the pasta water and then drain and rinse the pasta to stop the cooking.
Meanwhile, the pesto for this is embarrassingly easy. Grab an 8 oz. jar of the sun-dried tomatoes in oil and add the entire jar (plus oil) to a food processor with nuts, garlic, and lemon.
Pulse that up and you are in business!
Stir the sun-dried tomato pesto in with the orzo. If it seems dry at all, add reserved pasta water by the 1/4 cup until it smooths out. The sauce should barely coat all the pasta.
Then fold in some fresh baby arugula. This works best if the pasta isn’t hot as that will just completely wilt the arugula. Room temperature is good.
Don’t forget the parm. Lots of parm!
Season this thing with salt and pepper to your liking and you’re in business. It works great as a hearty side dish or a weekday lunch option!
The pasta itself stores really nicely. One tip though… if you are planning on storing it for longer than a day or two, I’d recommend NOT adding the arugula until you are ready to eat it because it’ll just wilt and get sad.
If you’re like me, you love a good pasta salad and especially an orzo pasta salad! This one checks all the boxes!
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About Macheesmo
Read MoreHello! My name is Nick Evans and I write and manage Macheesmo. I started Macheesmo 11 years ago when I was just learning my way around the kitchen. I love to cook and love everything food-related, but I have no formal training. These days I focus on fast, accessible recipes with the occasional “reach” recipe!
I’ve posted almost 2,000 recipes on Macheesmo. For each one, I do my best to give full explanations of what I did and tips on what I’d do differently next time. I’ll bring up the tricky parts and the easy parts.
I hope you can find something and cook something!
Love that you added arugula… I’m going to have to start doing this for all my pasta salads!
It’s one of my favorite tricks to lighten up pasta salads. You just can’t do it when the pasta is hot or it’ll wilt and get gross!
That orzo is HUGE! The orzo we get is a lot smaller. I’ll have to check out our Italian market. Now, one of my favorite arugula salads adds hot roasted shitake and leeks over the greens. They slightly wilt but not that much, a touch of salt and pepper and dressed with fresh lemon juice and extra- virgin olive oil — it’s delicious. One of our favorites. Your recipe sounds wonderful! I’ll definitely try it. Have a great weekend.
This recipe looks a little familiar….https://www.macheesmo.com/sun-dried-tomato-pasta-salad/
Not that I don’t make pesto out of anything and everything all the time, so no judgment here ;)
Always love your recipes!
Ha! I seriously barely remember that! Here’s to plagiarizing myself! :)