- We're gonna take some plain old orzo pasta
and fuse it with Mediterranean magic
and turn it into a flavor packed, loaded salad
that you can use with almost anything you make.
(upbeat music)
Hi, everyone, Suzy here from themediterraneandish.com,
your top resource for Mediterranean cooking.
You've come to the right place
for a loaded Mediterranean orzo pasta,
I'm gonna show you how.
First of all, orzo pasta is what we're working with today,
it is small pasta that looks like rice.
I have some boiling water going on, so let's head to it.
All right, so while the pasta is cooking,
all we have to do is chop up some beautiful ingredients.
We are gonna start with cherry tomatoes,
we're gonna cut them in half.
So even though cherry tomatoes are nice and small,
I like to cut them because I love
for them to provide some juice to this salad.
Next a nice bell pepper, we're gonna chop this up.
So I'm gonna go around and cut around the core.
And here you go, how easy was that?
Now slice it up and chop it nice and small.
All right, I think the orzo is ready,
so I'm gonna drain it for a moment
and we'll keep chopping while it cools for a little bit.
Next, two or three green onions, if you like them,
we're gonna chop these real small,
both white and green parts.
Green onions go in and then cucumber.
I am using English cucumbers,
which are seedless and nice and sweet.
Chop this up.
Now if you're planning to make this quite a bit in advance,
I would hold the cucumbers because they're watery,
so you don't want too much water in there.
Let's go in with this.
And I think the orzo is nice and cooled off enough.
I'm gonna probably add it to what I have here
and then I'm gonna finish this up
with a few more flavor makers,
some herbs, some olives, oh, so good.
Orzo ready just in time, and it cooled enough.
It's still a little bit warm, which I don't mind
because once you hit it up with that nice dressing,
it will absorb all the flavors.
So I'm gonna put it right in here.
All right, we're gonna go in with some fresh parsley.
We're gonna trim just a little bit
of the stem, not all of it.
That's where a ton of flavor is,
so it's not just the leaves.
Parsley goes in, next we have some dill.
With dill though, we're gonna trim the stem
'cause it's kinda fat, bunch it up and chop like a pro.
Dill goes in.
All right, we've got some beautiful briny olives and capers,
both some of my favorite Mediterranean ingredients to add
so much pizzazz to this salad.
So olives go in and then capers go in, oh, yes.
So for a dressing, you guessed it,
extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice.
So we're gonna start with one lemon zested and juiced.
So remember, zest the lemon first,
gap your hands and go ahead and juice the lemon.
And this is just so you can catch the seeds.
Unless you have a fancy lemon gadget.
I used to have, but I'm over it.
Funny gadget, oh, it doesn't fit in my gadget.
I don't think I'm doing this right.
Gosh.
I just use my hand now.
One of my favorite extra virgin olive oils,
Early Harvest Greek Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
We need a good quarter cup.
Right, from here we're gonna add fresh garlic.
One garlic clove to start with.
And it does mellow a bit
in the citrus and olive oil situation we have going on,
so don't worry so much.
Nobody wants to bite on a big piece of garlic,
I know that, so I try hard to get it nice and small.
We're gonna add the garlic
right in this lemon olive oil situation.
Good pinch of kosher salt, good pinch of black pepper.
And then some oregano.
Oh, let's start with a teaspoon.
All right, next we're gonna whisk it.
So much flavor.
All right, we're gonna pour this beautiful lemony dressing
all over our orzo pasta, all the fresh herbs.
So much goodness going on.
We're gonna give it a good mix.
And creamy feta. This salad goes
with almost anything you make,
but today I'm gonna serve it
with my lemon baked chicken drumsticks, so good.
So definitely check that one out.
I'm gonna toss this together one more time, that's it.
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Grab the recipe for this beautiful Orzo Salad
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I will see you later, ciao.