Illustrated recipe: Orzo salad
one pot meal for early autumn (or a cold and wet summer day)
Today’s recipe is a lovely fresh salad for summery weather. It’s pretty easy to make and you can substitute in and out ingredients as you prefer. We love a lot of citrus in our dressings, but you can always adjust the dressing and make one of your favourites. I think a mustard vinaigrette would go equally nicely. For those who are not fully plant-based, throwing in some feta would work, too.
This is a great salad to have in the fridge to just grab a small bowl as a snack, or to accompany other dishes.
Here’s your downloadable printable PDF version. This is an A4 version. If you need a Letter version, too, please let me know.
And a text version of the recipe…
NOTE: multiply these to make more (I normally do about 3× this quantity, but that makes enough for a few days
orzo × 1 handful
carrot ribbons × 2 carrots
cucumber × 1
red pepper × 1
red onion × 1
cherry tomatoes ×10–20 (depending on size)
lemon juice ×1
salt and olive oil to season
(optional) pine nuts
Cook the orzo according to the instructions (I usually boil it for about 10 minutes in salted water) and drain and rinse under cold water. You can also sit it in iced water to cool it quicker if you need to.
Meanwhile, make the carrot ribbons by first peeling the carrots (or washing them thoroughly if you like to keep the peel on and have organic carrots) and then using the peeler to peel strips.
Halve the cucumber, deseed it and salt it, then cut into quarter slices.
Deseed and depith the pepper and dice up small (about 5mm cubes).
Peel and dice the red onion (again, into about 5mm cubes).
Cut the cherry tomatoes into halves or quarters, depending on how small they are.
Juice the lemon.
Mix all the ingredients together and season with salt and really good olive oil.
For anyone who likes pine nuts, scatter them over when serving.
I hope you enjoyed this recipe. Let me know if you try it out. Thanks so much, again, for your support! And I would love it you would share The Illustrated Plant Kitchen with anyone you think would enjoy it, or recommend it if you have your own Substack.