Mediterranean Orzo Salad

This Mediterranean Orzo Salad is bursting with delicious Mediterranean inspired flavors, packed with chickpeas, Kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese. It’s colorful, refreshing and best of all ready in 20 minutes.

This here is my kind of salad. Want to know why? Because it has pasta. And this Mediterranean salad has orzo which is tiny pasta shaped like grains of rice. I love orzo, it’s so versatile, not to mention it’s perfect for salads like this. This salad is perfect as a side dish, or enjoyed on its own. I prefer it served cold, but you could eat warm as well.

I packed this salad with lots of good for you ingredients like chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese and one of my favorite ingredients ever, Kalamata olives. The dressing is really great as well and it couldn’t get any simpler.

The great thing about this salad is that you can customize it with your favorite ingredients. For example you could add kale to it, or spinach, grilled zucchini or even cucumbers. The sky is the limit.

The warm weather is finally here, even in Calgary we’ve been having amazing weather, the gorgeous blue Albertan skies and high temperatures which I can’t complain of. This is the time when I love eating these kinds of salads. They’re light, they’re tasty, and really fill you up. Trust me when I say that you will not feel like you’ve eaten a salad.

This salad comes together quite quickly, we’re talking 20 minutes tops, so make sure you start by cooking your orzo. By the way, the orzo could be substituted with rice if you wanted to, doesn’t really matter what you use. I’m just obsessed with orzo lately, because you know what, it only takes about 6 minutes to cook!

This salad is even more perfect the next day and it makes for a wonderful lunch.

Check out the video!

If you guys love this recipe, and most importantly make it yourselves, please let us know. Take a picture and tag it #jocooks on Instagram so we can see it. I always love to see what you guys come up with!

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Mediterranean Orzo Salad

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

10 mins

Total Time

20 mins

 

This Mediterranean Orzo Salad is bursting with delicious Mediterranean inspired flavors, packed with chickpeas, Kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese. It's colorful, refreshing and best of all ready in 20 minutes.

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Mediterranean

Servings: 6

Calories: 473 kcal

Author: Joanna Cismaru

Ingredients

For the Dressing

• 1/4 cup lemon juice freshly squeezed
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 clove garlic minced
• salt and pepper to taste

For the Salad

• 1 cup orzo dry
• 19 oz chickpeas (1 can)
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes cut in half
• 1 1/2 cups Kalamata olives pitted and cut in half
• 1 cup feta cheese crumbled
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley chopped
• 1 red onion chopped

Instructions

1. Cook the orzo pasta according to package instructions.

2. In a medium size jar add all the dressing ingredients together, close the lid and shake a few times, to mix well. Alternatively, you could whisk all the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl add all the salad ingredients, pour the dressing over and toss well. 

4. Top with additional feta cheese, parsley and pepper if preferred.

5. Serve cold.

Recipe Notes

Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container, for up to 3 days.

 

Please keep in mind that nutritional information is a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on products used.

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