Thursday, March 31, 2011

An Easy Orzo Salad

The weather has been so gorgeous lately, it's put me in a spring kind of mood. Sunny, breezy, lots of time outside and great ideas to use my newly potted herbs. I potted herbs I knew that I'd be using throughout the spring and summer and planted vegetables in the garden that I knew I could pair with them. Two of the herbs I use most regularly are basil and mint. I put fresh basil in all of my Italian dishes and mint in my freshly squeezed lemonade which my boys love! Both of these went into my orzo salad over the weekend. I got the basic recipe from Giada's DeLaurentis' website but tweaked it a little bit for the ingredients I had on hand.

Ingredients

  • 4 c chicken broth 
  • 1 lbs of orzo
  • 1 can of garbanzo beans
  • 2 c grape tomatoes halved
  • 1 c diced red onion
  • 1/2 c finely chopped basil
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
  • (optional) 1 c. light feta cheese
  • about 1 c Wish Bone Red Wine Vinegar
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Boil the orzo in the chicken broth for 9-10 min. Drain and let cool in the fridge. Toss with a fork occasionally until it cools. After it cools completely add beans, tomatoes, onion basil and mint and toss with vinaigrette. Salt and pepper and let it sit in the fridge for an hour or so for all the flavors to combine. (if you're adding your feta you can add it with all of the other ingredients before you toss it with the vinaigrette.

2 comments:

ellen said...

this looks super tasty and crohn's friendly.

Dani Noonan said...

I think it would def be crohn's friendly, but you'd have to be careful with the fresh basil and mint! put the feta in it...it tastes really good :)