Pasta salad is like if you had a vegetable that was made out of cake? I mean what is better than calling something a salad and just eating a bunch of pasta where you would normally have to eat leafy greens.
My favorite pasta to use for a pasta salad is orzo. What’s orzo? Orzo is a form of short cut pasta that’s made to resemble rice or barley. Orzo actually means barley in Italian. It’s a tiny bite of pasta that soaks up flavors well and cooks in a flash. This is an ideal pasta for a pasta salad, why? It keeps well, you can add any flavor to it, and it tastes great cold.
Preparing orzo is fairly simple, I cook it just like I would any other pasta.
Now the key to any good pasta salad is a cheese that’s going to stand out. I like to use feta or goat cheese because it maintains flavor well over a couple of days and the tangy flavor of the cheese accents most vegetables that you’d put in the pasta.
This dish came together on a Sunday afternoon after a failed attempt to make a pretty blog post about roasted veggies (fruitless). I had roasted a bunch of veggies in olive oil but at the end of the day the blog world is a fickle mistress and they were not pretty. So rather than banish the veggies to the fridge, I thought I could make a delicious salad with some orzo. And there you have it people, the life of a blog post.
Ingredients
1 Diced & Peeled Eggplant
2 Diced Zucchinis
1/2 Cup of Diced Onions
Handful of Halved Cherry Tomatoes
1 Cup of Feta Cheese
1 Cup of Dry Orzo
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
*Optional – 1/2 Cup of Diced Soppresata
* Optional – 1/4 Cup of Chopped/Pitted Kalamata Olives
2-3 Cups of Water
Method
Toss your vegetables with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then roast in the oven at 325F for 30 to 45 minutes, the key is to monitor the eggplant to make sure that cookes all the way through. It should be soft and have a almost sweet flavor.
Once your vegetables are cooked, remove them from the oven and set aside.
Prepare your orzo like you would cook pasta, salt the water and bring it to a boil. Then add your orzo, cook it like you would any other pasta. Once it’s soft and has no grittiness to it, strain the water and toss the orzo with olive oil then allow it to cool.
Once everything has cooled now assemble your “salad”. Add the roasted veggies to the orzo, then add your feta cheese, olives, and soppresata.
Garnish with some fresh chopped parsley and go to town.
- 1 Diced & Peeled Eggplant
- 2 Diced Zucchinis
- 1/2 Cup of Diced Onions
- Handful of Halved Cherry Tomatoes
- 1 Cup of Feta Cheese
- 1 Cup of Dry Orzo
- 2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
- *Optional – 1/2 Cup of Diced Soppresata
- * Optional – 1/4 Cup of Chopped/Pitted Kalamata Olives
- 2-3 Cups of Water
- Toss your vegetables with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then roast in the oven at 325F for 30 to 45 minutes, the key is to monitor the eggplant to make sure that cookes all the way through. It should be soft and have a almost sweet flavor.
- Once your vegetables are cooked, remove them from the oven and set aside.
- Prepare your orzo like you would cook pasta, salt the water and bring it to a boil. Then add your orzo, cook it like you would any other pasta. Once it’s soft and has no grittiness to it, strain the water and toss the orzo with olive oil then allow it to cool.
- Once everything has cooled now assemble your “salad”. Add the roasted veggies to the orzo, then add your feta cheese, olives, and soppresata.
- Garnish with some fresh chopped parsley and go to town.
