Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Orzo Salad with Toasted Pine Nuts

I was at a meeting about 10 years ago in Bethesda, MD and our lunches were catered. One day we had a delicious orzo salad. I went home and made a similar version of what I thought I had eaten.






Here is the recipe I came up with for my Orzo Salad.  You can buy 2 shapes of orzo. I like the elongated shape because it doesn't compete with the shape of the pine nuts the way the tear drop orzo shape does.



Over medium heat, toast 1/2 C Pine Nuts in Olive Oil. Place in bowl. Dice 1 Red Pepper and saute for 3 minutes in the same pan as the pine nuts. Place in bowl.




Steam for 2 minutes, 1 1/2 C Broccoli florets. Rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process. Cook 1 1/2 C Orzo in a large pot of boiling water. It will take about 7 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water to stop cooking process. Toss in 1 Tbl Olive Oil.


Mix up a Balsamic salad dressing or use your favorite Italian dressing. I like to use Good Season's Italian dressing packettes and I combine 2 vinegars and 2 oils when I make it. Toss all ingredients together and add S&P to taste. Top with Grated Parmesan Cheese. You can make this with many combinations of vegetables. I sometimes use grape tomato halves, black olives cut in half and asparagus.

2 comments:

Carole said...

Hey Janice,
I made your Orzo Pasta Salad with dinner tonight and it came out great! It actually looked just like your photo! Imagine that! Just wondering how much Italian Dressing you should put on. I wasn't sure but it was good the way I made it.

Janice said...

I like just enough that it isn't dripping in dressing but flavorful. If you top it one day you will need to add a little the next day because the pasta will obsorb the dressing. Nice going, hope everyone loved it!