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Orzo Pasta Salad

Dressed twice — once warm, once cold — so the seasoning goes through the pasta instead of sitting on it.

Prep
20 min
Cook
10 min
Makes
Serves 8
Jump to the recipe
A close-up of pasta salad with peppers and herbs
Photo: Engin Akyurt / Pexels

Most pasta salad is bland in the middle and oily on top, and the cause is that it was dressed once, cold.

Warm pasta absorbs. Cold pasta repels — the starch on the surface has set and the dressing has nowhere to go, so it slides off and collects at the bottom of the bowl. Dress half the vinaigrette through the orzo while it is still hot from the pan, let it cool, then dress again before serving. The first half seasons the pasta itself; the second coats everything.

The same dress-it-warm principle is why crunch salad gets its vinaigrette at the table instead.

Do not rinse it. Rinsing washes off the surface starch that helps dressing cling, and it is the reflex that undoes the point of the first dressing. Just drain and dress immediately.

Orzo is small and cooks fast — nine minutes, not twelve. Stir it in the first minute or it welds to the base of the pan, which is a specific hazard of small pasta shapes that nobody warns you about.

Dried pasta shapes including small grain-shaped orzo
Photo: Couleur / Pixabay

Orzo salad, printed

Dressed twice — once warm, once cold — so the seasoning goes through the pasta instead of sitting on it.

Salad and vinaigrette

For the salad

  • 14 oz (400 g) orzo
  • 1½ cups (250 g) cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1 cucumber, seeded and diced
  • 1 cup (150 g) black olives, halved
  • 7 oz (200 g) feta, crumbled
  • ½ red onion, finely sliced
  • Large handful each of basil and flat-leaf parsley

For the vinaigrette

  • ½ cup (120 ml) olive oil
  • ¼ cup (60 ml) red wine vinegar
  • Juice and zest of 1 lemon
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tsp honey
  • Salt and black pepper

Dressing the pasta salad twice

  1. 1 Shake all the vinaigrette ingredients together in a jar until thick.
  2. 2 Cook the orzo in heavily salted water for 9 minutes, stirring for the first minute so it does not stick to the base. Drain but do not rinse.
  3. 3 Tip the hot orzo into a wide bowl and stir through half the vinaigrette. Spread it out and leave to cool 20 minutes.
  4. 4 Fold in the tomatoes, cucumber, olives, onion and feta.
  5. 5 Add the rest of the vinaigrette and the torn herbs just before serving, and taste again — cold food needs more salt than warm food.

Keeping and reviving it

  • Keeps two days refrigerated. Bring it back to room temperature and add a splash of oil and lemon before serving; it tightens in the cold.
  • Any small shape works — ditalini, fregola, or broken spaghetti at a push.