This simple dish of Courgette and Cherry Tomato Orzo is the perfect light meal or side. It's packed full of flavour thanks to the roasted veggies and lemony dressing. Get the recipe below.
Simple dishes
I like to make simple dishes. All over this blog you will find meals that aren't complicated to make and focus on just a handful of ingredients.
It's the way I prefer to cook and I'm a firm believer that simple is actually best. Too many ingredients and flavours can take away from what would otherwise be delicious.
This Courgette and Cherry Tomato Orzo is incredibly simple. All you need to do is roast your veggies, cook your orzo then serve with a lemon and mint dressing.
I like to serve this dish cold, as a salad of sorts. You could however serve it hot if you wish.
How to make Courgette and Cherry Tomato Orzo
Let's take a closer look at these three simple steps.
Roasting veggies
The first step involved in making this dish is roasting the courgettes and cherry tomatoes along with whole cloves of garlic.
A healthy drizzle of olive oil helps the ingredients to cook and also serves as a good base for the dressing as it will have infused with all of the flavours (especially the garlic!)
I add the courgette and garlic to the roasting tin first and toss with the oil, salt and pepper. These cook in a hot oven for roughly 15 minutes before I add in the cherry tomatoes.
Once they have all cooked I leave them to cool in the roasting tin. (Though skip this step if you want to serve it hot).
Cooking orzo
If you're not familiar with orzo its a variety of pasta that is shaped a bit like long grain rice. This gives it a really fun texture / mouthfeel making it perfect for salads and other dishes, just like this!
To cook orzo you simply treat it like any other type of pasta, cooking it in a pan of salty water.
It doesn't take long to cook - just 10-12 minutes before it is the perfect texture.
I then leave it to cool before combining with the veggies and dressing.
Lemon and mint dressing
I dress this dish with a simple lemon and mint dressing.
I drain the oil from the veggies, mash up the cloves of garlic, squeeze in some lemon, before adding ribbons of sliced mint leaves.
Give it a good old whisk together before pouring over the veggies and orzo. Done!
The recipe
Courgette and Cherry Tomato Orzo
Ingredients
- 150 g orzo
- 3 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 large courgette cut into half moons
- 4 cloves garlic
- 12 cherry tomatoes
- 1 lemon juice only
- 3 tablespoon mint thinly sliced
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 180 C / 356 F / gas mark 4.
- Add the courgette and garlic to a roasting tin along with the olive oil. Toss well then place into the centre of the oven and roast for 25 minutes.
- When 15 minutes has elapsed, add the cherry tomatoes to the roasting tin and cook for a further 10 minutes.
- At the same time, add the orzo to a pan of salted, boiling water and cook for 10 minutes or until tender.
- Remove the vegetables from the oven and drain the orzo. Leave them all to cool before tossing with the dressing.
- To make the dressing, mash garlic cloves with a fork.
- Combine the mashed garlic, lemon juice, mint, salt and pepper and the oil from the vegetable roasting tin and whisk.
- Pour the dressing over the vegetables and orzo, toss and serve.
Nutrition
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What other salads would you like to see on the blog?
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