This orzo salad with herbs is a fan favourite and brimming with Greek tastes. It is loaded with fresh dill and mint, tangy feta cheese, and lemon, and it bursts with flavour.
“What is the greatest method to eat food that is both healthy and delicious?” This is something that Alex and I like to say, despite the fact that there is no clear-cut response to this issue. GROW HERBS. Doesn’t that sound a little bit circuitous to you? What exactly makes eating healthier when you grow your own herbs?
Our consensus is that taking proper care of herbs needs one to take things more slowly. You can’t hide from the changing of the seasons and avoid getting your hands filthy like you can when you’re engrossed in the glow of your smartphone screen. When herbs are used in cooking, they can transform an average dish into an extraordinary one without contributing any additional calories.
The herbs give this meal its unique flavour. Herbs contribute flavour, subtlety, and a sense of contentment. Hence, despite the fact that it might not appear that way at first glance, this Greek orzo salad encapsulates our entire outlook on how food, health, life, and community should relate to each other. It’s all about enjoying life to the fullest. Continue reading to find out more information about what this implies, how to cook with herbs, and how to make this herbaceous orzo salad!
How to Live Deliciously
I was asked by our friends at Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove about how we manage to maintain a delicious lifestyle, so we decided to make a Greek orzo salad to demonstrate how we do so. They are high-end manufacturers of appliances for cooking, cleaning dishes, and storing food (you may remember we visited their HQ a few years ago in Madison). Not only are Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove committed to producing home appliances of the greatest possible quality, but they are also dedicated to propagating a concept that goes beyond the confines of the kitchen. Putting down our phones, picking up our forks, and savouring every succulent, savoury, and sweet flavour of the wonderful life are the central themes of these expressions.
Cooking with Herbs
In point of fact, how does this appear when it’s put into practice? For us, it has to be this recipe for orzo salad, which is loaded with fresh dill and mint picked from our herb garden. Alex and I have been tending a garden together for close to ten years, and over that time we have made a multitude of errors. Yet, we feel that the investment is well worth it in order to obtain delectable fresh herbs to use in our cooking.
In addition to this, it enables us to have a sense of stability that is difficult to put into words. The greatest honour is being able to cook using produce from our garden. There’s nothing quite like gathering on the patio with close friends and family to enjoy the fruits of our labour caring for the potted plants we’ve been growing all season.
Growing your own herbs can be done in a garden or in pots, and here are some helpful hints and suggestions for doing so. It will then be much simpler and more enjoyable for you to produce dishes on your own, such as this one for orzo salad, rather than purchasing them already packaged from the shop.
Get Cooking with Herbs!
When you’ve established a successful herb garden, the next step is to put those herbs to good use in the kitchen. There is an astonishing variety of approaches of using herbs into culinary preparations. The following are some of our favourite ways to cook with herbs, along with sufficient recipes for a sizable dinner party.
Salad: This Greek Orzo Salad (below), which demonstrates how herbs may make a salad taste even better, is shown below. The orzo and vegetables take on a much more robust flavour after being seasoned with dill and mint. You may also try something else, such as this Peach and Burrata Salad.
Sauce: The sauce used in these Greek Portobello Burgers is a herb-loaded yoghurt dill sauce, and it’s poured all over the sandwich to give it a deliciously herbaceous flavour. You might also like our Baked Salmon with Chimichurri, which comes with a green sauce flavoured with herbs.
Soup: This Italian Vegetable Gnocchi Soup is a great example of how fresh basil can greatly enhance the flavour of soup stock. If it’s warm outside, you should try the traditional gazpacho.
Pizza: When it comes to pizza, nothing beats using fresh herbs. The spicy basil that is used in Margherita pizza and Greek pizza demonstrates the pizza’s potential to fly.
Dessert: Herbs aren’t only for mains. Traditional Strawberry Shortcake with Mint and Basil Garnishes The impact of herbaceous flavours can be seen in strawberry popsicles.
How to Make Orzo Salad
And now, the instructions for how to prepare delicious Greek orzo salad! First things first: what exactly is orzo? Orzo is a type of little pasta that takes the form of rice, despite the fact that it only superficially resembles rice. Recipes with a Mediterranean influence, such as those used in Italian and Greek cooking, frequently call for its use. In this orzo salad, we’ve brought together all of Greece’s most iconic flavours, including salty feta cheese, briny Kalamata olives, and of course, superfood herbs like mint and dill!
How to make orzo salad:
- Bring the orzo to a boil. The boiling time for orzo is typically between seven and eight minutes; prepare it in accordance with the directions on the package, but start testing for “al dente” a few minutes earlier than the packaging suggests. The phrase “al dente” refers to pasta that is soft yet still has a bite to it.
- Adjust the flavours of the chickpeas. As you are creating the salad, throw the chickpeas in a bowl with some lemon juice, lemon zest, and salt. Then, let them sit there while you prepare the salad. This will add a lot of flavour to the chickpeas.
- The vegetables should be chopped. Prepare the cucumber, roasted red pepper, red onion, and herbs by chopping them into small pieces.
- Combine everything by mixing it. After that, combine all of the vegetables and herbs with olive oil, white wine vinegar, feta cheese, and Kalamata olives in a mixing bowl.
- Are you ready? Let’s begin cooking!
Ingredients
- 8 ounces orzo pasta (1 ¼ cup dry)
- 1 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 lemon, juice, and zest (about 2 tablespoons juice)
- ¼ cup minced shallot or red onion
- 1/2 English cucumber (2 cups diced, or substitute a peeled standard cucumber)
- 2 roasted red peppers from a jar or ½ fresh red bell pepper (½ cup diced)
- â…“ cup chopped dill, plus more for garnish
- â…“ cup chopped mint
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ cup feta cheese crumbles
- â…“ cup Kalamata olives, halved
- Black pepper
Instructions
- Orzo should be cooked in accordance with the directions provided on the package. To guarantee that the orzo is “al dente,” give it a taste a few minutes before it is finished cooking (chewy, but with a little firmness in the center). When it is finished, drain it and then rinse it under cold water until it is at room temperature. Drain it again when it is at room temperature.
- Put the chickpeas in a bowl and add the lemon zest, lemon juice, and a quarter of a teaspoon of kosher salt to the mixture. Mix well.
- After mincing the red onion, put it in a bowl and cover it with water (this helps to remove the sharp onion taste). Cut the cucumber into cubes. Cut the roasted red pepper into small dice. Chopped the fresh herbs.
- Orzo, chickpeas, and a bowl containing lemon juice, red onion, cucumber, red pepper, dill, mint, white wine vinegar, olive oil, Dijon mustard, oregano, crumbled feta cheese, black olives, and several grinds of black pepper should be mixed together in a bowl. After tasting it, season it with additional kosher salt if it needs it.
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