Orzo Pesto Salad (A GREAT 4th of July Side Dish!)

This recipe comes from my cookbook, Entertaining 101: 101 Recipes Every Host Should Know How to Make!

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Orzo Pesto Salad Recipe
Serves 6-8

If this Orzo Pesto Salad could talk? We’ve whipped it up on both sides of the Atlantic, shuttled it around to potlucks and school picnics, and it still remains my husband’s favorite summer side dish. It’s just so easy and delicious!

It’s also a very filling side dish, so if you are serving something on the grill, and short on time, you can get away with this being your only side dish. It has the starchiness and the freshness of the veggies all rolled into one.

My husband and I have debated about which cheese is better in this salad, the pearl mozzarella balls or the crumbled goat cheese. And for years I swore the mozzarella was better, but now I think he’s right! I’ve crossed over to Team Goat Cheese. It really does add so much more flavor! But try for yourself and you decide, or add both!

INGREDIENTS:
Pesto: (see Note 1)
2 cups (38 g) basil leaves
1 garlic clove, minced
3 tbsp (45ml) pine nuts
½ tsp (2.5ml) salt
½ cup (120ml) olive oil
¼ cup (12 g) parmesan cheese

Salad:
1 pound (454 g) orzo pasta
8 ounces (227g) sugar snap peas
¾ cup (110g) sundried tomatoes in oil, sliced into strips
4 ounces (113 g) crumbled goat cheese or pearl mozzarella balls
½ cup (70 g) pine nuts
½ cup (8 g) julienned basil

Set a large pot to boil with 6 quarts of water, salted to taste.

Once boiling add the pasta and cook slightly covered for 10-11 minutes stirring occasionally to avoid the pasta sticking to the bottom. It’s done when the pasta is tender and doubled in size.

To make the pesto; in the bowl of a food processor add the basil leaves, garlic, pine nuts and salt. Processor until basil is minced, scrape down the bowl if needed to process again to ensure the leaves are mincing well.

Then with the machine running, slowly add the oil

Drain the pasta and run it under cold water to stop the cooking process. Place it in a large bowl and toss with the pesto.

Add the snap peas, sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese or mozzarella and toss to coat. Then stir in the pine nuts and basil.

The benefit of serving this immediately, is the goat cheese starts to soften slightly under the warmth of the pasta which makes it really yummy!

Otherwise, keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Notes:
To save time you could use a good quality store-bought pesto sauce sold in the refrigerated section of your supermarket.

Make Ahead Game Plan:
Up to 1 day ahead the salad can be made. Keep covered and refrigerated until ready to serve.

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– Hi guys. Welcome back to my channel. It’s so good to be back here in France and I wanted to just post
this video a little bit early because this is a fantastic salad to make for 4th of July weekend. This recipe also happens to
appear in my new cookbook, so if you already have your copy, you can find it on page 87. And if you’re new to my channel and don’t know about my cookbook,
here it is ready for sale. 101 recipes that I think every
host should know how to make, including this orzo pesto salad. It makes for a great summer potluck. So the first thing we’re gonna do is make our homemade pesto. You don’t have time for homemade pesto. You can just use a store-bought brand. I would just get the
kind that’s refrigerated that comes in like the
little plastic tub as opposed to something in a jar, because
I just find it’s a little bit fresher as better flavor. So two cups of basil leaves going into our food processor here. Also wanna add three
tablespoons of pine nuts, one garlic clove that you’ve minced. I like to mince the garlic ahead of time rather than
throwing the clove in there because I just think you
get a better distribution of garlic flavor than leaving it to chance with the food processor. Then you’re also going to add
a half a teaspoon of salt, then process on high, and it should look like this minced, but not really too puree. Then with the machine
running, you’re going to add half a cup of olive oil and just add it a little bit at a time, making sure it’s
incorporating with the pesto. And about halfway, you could
scrape down the bowl just to make sure everything
is combining there. Then you’ll have a lovely pesto
sauce that you can transfer to a bowl, and then you’re
gonna add a quarter cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. I do think you get better flavor and texture if you grate it yourself. So I would just go
ahead and buy yourself a nice wedge of Parmesan. Keep it in your fridge. It
lasts for a very long time, and then you can grate
it on pasta as needed, and then you’ll have it for your pesto. So you can set this aside and then we’re gonna boil our pasta. Okay, so for this recipe, I
really like to use orzo pasta. A lot of people who haven’t had it before, at first they think it’s rice because it looks like little rice, but I find there’s something
just a little bit more delicious about it for a
cold salad than a rice salad. If you can’t find orzo pasta, you could use little mini shells or a mini macaroni that would also work. Then be sure to salt your water. This is just going to give
your pasta a lot more flavor. The Italian sage should
taste like the sea. Then once your water is boiling,
go ahead and add the pasta and do give it a stir so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom. Okay, I know there are people
out there that will hate this, but just give a tristle of olive oil because this pasta really
sticks to the bottom. Just look the other way. Those people who don’t like
oil in the pasta water, 10 to 11 minutes and it’ll be done. Then once your pasta is cooked and drained, you can transfer
it to a large mixing bowl. See how much this makes? This really does expand when
you’re pouring it into the pot, you think it’s not gonna make very much, but once it expands, it definitely does. Look at this, this could feed an army, I would say six to eight people. If you’re serving it as a side dish. Then we’re gonna add the
pesto sauce right on top. If you are using store bought, I think this is probably
about a half a cup. I would just keep adding
it until you feel like all of your pasta has been covered. But I would start at a half a cup. Okay. Then once your pasta is all coated, then we’re gonna add these
delicious little mix-ins to it. You wanna add three quarters cup of sliced sun dried tomatoes. I also love to add a
half a cup of pine nuts because the pine nuts are
almost the same size as the orzo and it creates kind of
this nice little crunch that’s unexpected because
it blends in with the orzo so you don’t really see it coming. But when it comes, you’re so
appreciative, so delicious ’cause it’s sort of buttery and crunchy. What really makes this salad so delicious and summery are the sugar snap peas. For some reason, I could not
find them here in France, and I could only find these snow peas. Snow peas are just flatter
than a sugar snap pea, which is a little bit more
oval and kind of fatter. A little bit more flavor,
but these are still good. Okay, now for the cheese, years ago I used to make this salad with
small pearl mozzarella, but my husband started putting
goat cheese in this salad and we went back and
forth on which is better. I totally think he’s right
with the goat cheese. So if you don’t like goat cheese,
stick with the mozzarella. But if you wanna try it with the goat cheese, I highly recommend it. And then a just finishing
touch is a little bit of Julianne basil on top
just to make it super pretty and extra summary. I hope you guys give this one a try and let me know what you think. And if you haven’t had a chance
to purchase the cookbook, the link is in the description. There’s a ton of wonderful
summer recipes in here, as well as recipes to last throughout the year. Alright, you guys, I’ll see
you back here next time. Until then, bye.