This Orzo Pesto Pasta Salad is a quick and healthy dish that's perfect for summer meals and get-togethers. Its balance of fresh vegetables, orzo pasta, and a flavorful pesto sauce makes it versatile and easy to customize to your taste. Enjoy it as a side dish or top it with a protein to make it a meal.
🌿 Why make this pesto orzo salad?
- It's full of summer garden flavors, including kale, zucchini, red onion, and basil if you're making your own pesto.
- It's quick! The cooking consists of boiling some pasta and sautéing a little zucchini. Otherwise, you're just tossing ingredients together. Using a premade pesto (either your own or store-bought) helps keep this recipe quick and easy.
- It's versatile. Enjoy it as a side, a main dish, or for a summer BBQ. You can have this salad warm, cold, or at room temperature. It's surprisingly filling, so it can work as a side or add a protein on top and make it a meal. Plus, you can swap out vegetables to your liking.
If you like fresh summer salads, check out my recipes for Blackened Shrimp Salad, Arugula and Spinach Salad with Chicken, Pesto Pasta Salad with Sundried Tomatoes, and Bok Choy with Tofu Salad.
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🥬 Ingredients
Here's everything you need to make pesto orzo pasta salad.
Key Ingredients
- Pesto - You can make a quick homemade pesto (the mint pesto from this recipe would be great here, or here's a more traditional recipe), or buy some fresh from a local farmers market or produce department. When I have time, I like to make a batch of pesto and freeze it by the cup so I have it on hand for quick recipes like this.
- Orzo - A small, rice-shaped pasta that serves as the base of this dish. I love orzo. It really is like large-grained rice. It's great in salads and soups.
- Zucchini - Chopped zucchini is sauteed and then tossed in with the other salad ingredients, allowing it to blend in well without calling too much attention to itself. This works well if you're making this for those who aren't huge zucchini fans.
- Kale - Any kind of kale is good here, though if your leaves are large, you'll want to remove the stems and ribs. Then, it'll be finely sliced and massaged with lemon juice until tender before tossing with the other ingredients.
- Red onion - A bit of chopped red onion adds a little bite and crunch. Briefly soaking the chopped onion in water will help reduce the harshness.
- Sundried tomatoes - The deep tomato flavor and chewy texture of sundried tomatoes contrast nicely with the other salad ingredients.
- Sunflower seeds - For some added crunch.
- Parmesan cheese - Parmesan adds saltiness and nuttiness to the orzo salad. A vegetable peeler makes it easy to make thin strips of cheese.
- Lemon juice - For a bit of brightness and acidity as well as to help soften the kale.
See the recipe card below for the full list of ingredients and quantities.
🍽️ Substitutions & Variations
- Make it a meal by topping the orzo kale salad with grilled shrimp, chicken, or tofu.
- Try substituting other vegetables, such as chard or spinach instead of kale, yellow squash, peas, bell pepper, or green beans instead of zucchini. It's an easy recipe to customize, and it's hard to go wrong. The recipe, as it's written, calls for about 2 cups of kale and 2 cups of zucchini, so aim for similar amounts when substituting.
- Swap orzo for couscous. Orzo is the star of the dish here, but you could swap it out for Israeli couscous for a similar taste since, technically, that's a type of pasta as well.
🍲 Instructions
How to make pesto orzo salad with kale.
- Step 1: Cook the orzo pasta in salted boiling water until al dente, about 8 minutes.
- Step 2: Meanwhile, roll the kale leaves together, then thinly slice them into strips.
- Step 3: Toss the kale strips with half of the lemon juice and massage with your hands until softened.
- Step 4: Quarter the zucchini lengthwise, then thinly slice into bite-sized pieces.
- Step 5: Toast the sunflower seeds in a pan over low heat until lightly browned, 2-3 minutes.
- Step 6: Remove the seeds from the pan, add some olive oil, and saute the zucchini for about 6-8 minutes.
- Step 7: Drain the orzo and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking.
- Step 8: Whisk the pesto with the remaining lemon juice.
- Step 9: Gather all of your ingredients.
- Step 10: Add everything to a bowl, gently toss with the pesto until coated, and top with cheese and sunflower seeds.
🌟 Top Tip
Don't overcook the orzo! Cooking it just to al dente will give the salad some good texture while overcooking will make it mushy. Rinsing with cold water after draining will also help.
🥡 Storage
Leftover pesto orzo pasta salad may be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days. I wouldn't recommend freezing this dish.
🙋🏼♂️ FAQ
This pasta salad will last for up to four days in an airtight container in the fridge.
A flavorful pasta salad should include fresh ingredients, such as vegetables and herbs, and a light dressing that can tie everything together. It should also include a mix of textures and a variety of flavors.
Cook your pasta in salted boiling water until al dente, or until it still has a little bite. Avoid overcooking your pasta to prevent a mushy pasta salad.
You can certainly make pasta salad the night before and store it in the fridge. In fact, it will probably taste even better because the flavors have had time to meld.
🍗 Pairing
These recipes would go great with pesto orzo pasta salad:
📖 Recipe
Orzo Pesto Pasta Salad
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4-6 servings, as a side 1x
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This pesto orzo pasta salad is a quick and healthy side or main dish perfect for summer meals and get-togethers. Its balance of fresh vegetables, hearty pasta, and a flavorful pesto dressing makes it versatile and easy to customize.
Ingredients
- 1 cup orzo pasta
- a small bunch of kale (will depend on the size of your leaves)
- Juice of 1 lemon (about 2-3 tablespoons)
- ½ small red onion
- 1 medium zucchini
- ¼ cup sun-dried tomatoes
- ¼ cup sunflower seeds
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup pesto (store-bought or homemade)
- ¼ cup shredded or thinly sliced parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Cook the orzo. Bring a small pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add several pinches of salt, then the orzo. Cook according to the package directions until al dente (so it still has a little bite) but not overcooked, about 8 minutes. Scoop out a cup of pasta cooking water and set aside. Then drain the orzo and rinse with cold water to stop cooking.
- Prep the kale. If the kale has large stems or ribs, remove them. Then, stack the kale leaves together and roll them up. Thinly slice the roll of kale into strips. You want at least 2 cups. Add the kale to a bowl with half the lemon juice and massage it with your hands until the leaves soften.
- Prep the onion and zucchini. Finely chop the red onion. Add it to a small bowl, cover it with cold water, and soak it for a few minutes to help remove some of its bite. Quarter the zucchini lengthwise and slice each quarter into bite-sized pieces. Finally, roughly chop the sun-dried tomatoes.
- Cook the ingredients. Add the sunflower seeds to a skillet and toast for 2-3 minutes over low heat until lightly browned. Remove them from the pan, set aside for now, and pour the olive oil into the pan. Increase the heat to medium and add the zucchini. Saute for 6-8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tender.
- Get your ingredients together. Drain the water from the red onion. Then, add the cooked orzo, massaged kale, soaked red onion, zucchini, chopped tomatoes, and salt in a bowl. Pour in the pesto sauce. Toss everything together, adding some of the reserved pasta water, if needed, to thin out the pesto and help it coat the salad. Top with the sunflower seeds and Parmesan.
Notes
Try not to overcook the orzo and don't forget to rinse it with cold water to stop cooking.
The reserved pasta water helps thin the pesto and adds flavor to make a sauce. But if you forget to reserve some, you can use regular water in its place.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Side Dishes
- Method: Stove top
- Cuisine: Mediterranean
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