GREEK PASTA SALAD (my favorite orzo salad!)

Easy, healthy, savory, briny, fresh…I could go on! This pasta salad has it all!

📝 Full written recipe with tips: https://zestfulkitchen.com/greek-orzo-pasta-salad-recipe/

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► TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 How to Make Greek Orzo Pasta Salad
0:25 Cook orzo
0:53 Make the Greek vinaigrette
3:04 Drain orzo and add to vinaigrette
3:42 Prep vegetables
4:51 Type of olives to use for pasta salad
5:01 What do Castelvetrano olives taste like
5:08 What do Kalamata olives taste like
5:28 How to chop parsley
6:40 What to substitute shallot with
6:43 How to reduce the potency of raw shallot
7:08 Block feta vs crumbled feta
8:00 Taste test
8:26 How to serve Greek Pasta Salad

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► FEATURED IN VIDEO:
Large wood cutting board: https://linksta.io/1fb14828
Magnetic knife strip: https://linksta.io/d2f9e98f
My favorite Chefs knife: https://linksta.io/7c6332e2
Pepper mill: I can’t find the exact Peugeot mill, but here’s their line https://linksta.io/2298294f
Kitchen timer (used in every test kitchen I’ve worked in): https://linksta.io/b11777fb
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welcome i’m Lauren from Zestful Kitchen and welcome to Everyday Gourmet where I share realistic recipes for the avid home cook using fresh ingredients and global flavors today we’re making a fabulous pasta salad for summer it’s a Greek orzo pasta salad it’s briny and salty it’s also really herby but it’s packed with vegetables as well so it’s kind of a double duty side dish and I think you’re really going to love it okay so the first step with our pasta salad is to get some orzo cooking i have some water boiling on the stove top and I’m going to add a good amount of salt to our pot okay we’ll add the orzo we’re let that cook according to directions which I don’t know how long that would be okay this is going to cook for 7 minutes okay we’re going to set a timer and then we’re going to make the very easy dressing it’s a briney salty dressing the salad itself has some briney ingredients in it that we’ll also use some olive brine but we’re going to start with my little soldiers over here for my dressing um so we’re going to have a little bit more vinegar than olive oil so it’s not a classic 1 to1 vinegrett um I’m using my little bone mama jar to measure these little cute things from the advent calendar are two tablespoons so it makes measuring liquids quite easy so I need 5 tablespoons of red wine vinegar so I’m just going to fill this up two and a half times put that in okay and then we’re going to do 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil you want a really bold spicy olive oil and then we’re going to chop up some fresh oregano you can also use dried oregano if you want we need a tablespoon of fresh or you can use one and a half teaspoons of dried oh it smells so good that’s probably good and I’m just going to mince this up so all of that is going to go in and then we need two teaspoons each of honey let’s hope we have enough and some Dijon if you do not want to use honey you can also use just white sugar or you could use maple syrup there we go okay now we’re going to put in some Dijon mustard and I think that’s it for the dressing but I need to check so we have red wine vinegar olive oil oregano dijon honey crushed red pepper flakes half teaspoon or to taste is what I would really actually say probably going to do about that much um and you can always season to taste at the end right before serving you can add more or you can just do black pepper so I’m just going to whisk that together it’s essentially an Italian or well I guess we’re making a Greek orzopas salad but it’s a very Italianish dressing um but oregano is also very Greek so I’m going to set this aside once the orzo comes out of the pot I’m going to put it in warm so that it can kind of continue to cook and soak up some of that dressing so each bite is really flavorful here we go all right now we’re we’re I don’t know which one to talk to so I’m going to take my hot drained orzo and put it right in here oops and then I’m going to immediately toss it so everything is nice and coated oh it smells good now we’re just going to prep everything else that goes into the salad we’re going to add everything and we’re done it’s very easy it’s a pasta salad we need two cups of spinach or arugula some kind of tender green i like arugula cuz it’s really peppery and I have some really beautiful wild arugula so spicy and delicious and then I also have some baby arugula right here i’m gonna eyeball it um and I’m gonna do a little bit of both we might just do all of it let’s just do all of it oh you can smell how peppery it is it’s so good okay so then we’re going to dice up a cucumber and I’m using an English cucumber because it’s nearly seedless tiny tiny seeds and a really thin skin okay cucumbers are going to go in oops and give it one more toss then we can toss on the arugula as well and then we’re going to slice up some olives you can do all of one kind or a mix of two i prefer to do a combination of calamatada and Castell Vatrono olives um I like the butteriness of Castell Vronos they’re mild they’re really buttery they’re delicious but calamata bring like the classic Greek salty flavor all right that looks like it’ll be about 3/4 cup and then we’ll just slice these up oh look at how pretty all those colors are okay the other green component we’re going to add is a ton of fresh chopped parsley i already forgot how much I need one whole bunch goes in okay I’m just going to take off the end of the stems but I’m going to leave the tender stems cuz it’s going to add some texture some crunch and flavor um both parsley and cilantro stems have a ton of flavor and they’re tender enough to include so if you want that crunch you can add it in i will say for chopping tons of herbs like this if you rinse them and spin them dry really well in your salad spinner and then like if you do that the night before then they dry out really nicely they’re much easier to chop than if they’re still wet from washing so I recommend doing that when you bring them home just getting that done i’m not going to put all this in just because this was a huge bunch of parsley but I’m going to put most of it in and then we can season to taste at the end gorgeous the olive brine um I meant to do this earlier so we’re going to add two tablespoons of olive brine forgot that goes in just do that and then we have one shallot that we’re going to thinly slice i’m going to do a fairly small one just cuz raw shallots can be really potent um if you’re not a fan of shallot you could do a little bit of red onion you could also soak the shallot in cold water for about 15 minutes and then drain it and add it in that’ll be a more mild shallot flavor it’s also an option all right I’m going to separate them out just so you don’t get a huge chunk of shallot nobody wants that and then the last thing is to crumble in some feta and I am going to use about 4 ounces and then right before serving I’ll put some over top as well and I do recommend getting chunk feta or black feta instead of pre-crumbled it’s just better flavor and texture as you can tell we have not seasoned this with salt at all we didn’t put any salt in the dressing but we’re adding a ton of salt in the form of feta and olives olive brine i would wait to season it with salt until everything is combined and then you can add some more and look at how green it is it’s so pretty but that is why I like to use a combination of calamata and green olives because I think the pop of purple from the calamata is really pretty but I like the flavor of Castile Vrono so you could also use olives you could use um pimento stuffed olives jalapeno stuffed olives anything really works in this i am going to finish with a little bit of red pepper flakes cuz I feel like it needs a little more spice and it’s good for people to know it’s in there so okay let’s dig [Music] in parsley all up in there it’s a pasta salad that still feels really fresh and light for summer doesn’t feel heavy it’s almost like there’s a salad that orzo’s in instead of it being a pasta salad it’s delish make it this would pair wonderfully with any kind of grilled protein fish chicken it would be delicious with grilled brz as well it’s the perfect summer side dish and let me know if you make it everything is linked below all the info everything you need to know to find it um and I hope you meet me back here next week for another everyday gourmet recipe okay I got to turn the AC on i’m getting hot okay yum