The Chef-Approved Reason Orzo Works So Well For Pasta Salad
Just like any other pasta dish, choosing the right pasta for a pasta salad can be difficult. It's already hard enough to choose the best pasta for your sauce, but with pasta salads, you have entirely different criteria to measure by. A good pasta salad should work so that you can enjoy all the different elements in a single bite, the pasta will hold the dressing well, and there is no need for cutlery. Pasta salad is, after all, a side (though that might be up for debate), and is best enjoyed at picnics and cookouts where knives should be optional.
One pasta that easily fits all of these criteria, and then some, is orzo. While orzo may look like a grain, it is in fact a type of pasta. It's made with the same durum wheat flour that most dried pastas are made with and can be used in all the ways that other smaller pastas can be used. One area where it shines, however, is in pasta salads like this Greek salad with shrimp and cherry tomatoes.
Chef Matthew Dolan at 25 Lusk told HuffPost that orzo is great because it interacts well with all of the other elements of a good pasta salad. Its grain-like shape also makes the dish feel more like a grain salad, which can be a nice break from the norm.
How to cook orzo
Despite orzo's rice-like appearance, it needs to be cooked like pasta. Sure, if you work out the quantities perfectly, it might be able to cook well with the absorption method typically reserved for rice and quinoa; but there's no reason you can't just rely on the colander like any other pasta.
One change that's important to make for any pasta salad preparation is to add more salt to your cooking water. This small tweak for pasta salads just calls for adding twice as much salt as you normally would if your pasta is going to be used in a pasta salad. The reason for this change is that pasta salads are served cold. Those salty flavors won't be as intense once your pasta has cooled, so you need to add extra unless you're working with a particularly salty dressing. This will make sure that your pasta doesn't end up tasting like the blandest part of your salad.
Other ways to enjoy orzo
Orzo might be great for pasta salad, but that's not the only way to use it. In fact, it can be even more versatile than other styles of pasta because it can mimic the texture of grains and pasta. That means it can be used in a faux risotto, coated with a light sauce like pesto, or used in a recipe for an Italian wedding soup.
It's also great in recipes where it can have a chance to be cooked directly in a broth or sauce. Just like rice is sometimes used, orzo can be added late into the preparation of a dish to make use of a cooking or braising liquid. This is great for one-pot or pan meals and is an easy way to add tons of flavor directly to the pasta.
Just like in pasta salads, orzo is also great in any recipe that has other bite-sized components. This is because orzo tends to play well with other small ingredients. By using orzo in something like soup, you'll get a taste of all the different ingredients in every bite.