Orzo Pasta with Roasted Vegetables
Orzo pasta provides the foundation here for an easy weeknight meal. Roasted delicata squash and kale are tossed with the pasta & salted yogurt. Super easy, so tasty. Also great with other pasta shapes!
Today's recipe? Orzo pasta with roasted vegetables. I simply roasted a number of the ingredients I had around the kitchen, and pulled it all together on a big family-style platter. The star of the show is the delicata squash. I can't get enough of it this time of year, and love that you can roast and eat it with the skin on! Kale? It's hard to escape right now, and for this you make it nice and toasty. The orzo is a blend of whole wheat and plain - the remainder of a bag I've had sitting around. I tossed it all with a salted yogurt dressing of sorts. Creamy, filling and all-in-all delicious.
Tips!
Don't feel limited by the my choice of roasted vegetables here, you can certainly swap in whatever you can imagine would be good. So ideas include a different winter squash like a red kuri. Broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, carrots are all great. Just remember to roast each individually, they’ll cook at different timeframes.
More Pasta Recipes
- Homemade Pasta
- Pappardelle
- Cavatelli
- Pici
- Beet Fettuccine
- Pasta with Crushed Creamy Walnut Sauce
- Stuffed Shells
- Last Minute Red Lasagna
- more pasta recipes
Premium Ad-Free membership includes:
-Ad-free content
-Print-friendly recipes
-Spice / Herb / Flower / Zest recipe collection PDF
-Weeknight Express recipe collection PDF
-Surprise bonuses throughout the year
Orzo Pasta with Roasted Vegetables
I used a blend of whole wheat and plain orzo pasta here. Use whatever you have or like. I find having percentage of plain mixed in with the whole wheat lightens it up nicely while still getting the benefits of a whole grain pasta.
- 1 medium delicata squash, seeded & sliced 1/3-inch thick
- 3 shallots, peeled
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or melted clarified butter
- fine grain sea salt
- 4 medium cloves garlic, peel on
- 12 kale leaves, washed & dried well, de-stemmed & cut into 3-inch strips
- 1 1/2 cups / 9 ounces uncooked orzo pasta
- 1/2 cup / 120 ml plain yogurt
- For serving: slivered scallions, fresh oregano, toasted nuts or seeds
-
Preheat the oven to 400°F / 205°C with racks arranged in the top and bottom thirds. Line two baking sheets with parchment. You're going to roast the squash, shallots, and garlic on one sheet, and the kale on another.
-
Prep the delicata squash, and toss it in a large bowl with the shallots, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, and a big pinch of salt. Arrange in a single layer on one of the baking sheets, add the garlic and place on the bottom rack, for about 30 minutes. Spin once or twice along the way to get even roasting - let it all get deeply golden.
-
After the squash is in the oven, use the same bowl to toss the kale with another splash of olive, and pinch of salt. Arrange the leaves on the other baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, or until you get a touch of browning, but the leaves are primarily still green. Set aside.
-
Get the pasta water boiling, salt well, and cook the orzo pasta. Drain and use quickly (warm) OR (if you won't be serving for a while) run under cold water, and toss with a tiny splash of olive oil.
-
For the dressing, extract the roasted garlic from its peel, and mash it with a bit of the yogurt and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt. Work in the rest of the yogurt, taste, and add more salt if needed.
-
When you're ready to serve, toss the orzo, and roasted vegetables with about half of the yogurt. Turn out onto a platter and sprinkle with scallions, oregano, and seeds/nuts. Serve the remaining yogurt to the side.
Serves 4-6.
Related Recipes
Homemade Pasta
Everything I know about making homemade pasta. Four ingredients! If you have flour, two eggs, a splash of olive oil, and a bit of salt, you can do it right now.
Homemade Cavatelli
Simple, homemade cavatelli pasta is a super fun shape to make! Pictured here spiked with turmeric and black pepper, and topped with roasted winter vegetables and Parmesan.
Pasta with Creamy Crushed Walnut Sauce
Toasted walnuts pounded with garlic into a creamy sauce make this pasta easy and exceptional. If you have dried pasta, a few cloves of garlic, walnuts, and black pepper you can make this. The other ingredients - lemon zest, a bit of grated cheese, a finishing cascade of breadcrumbs and herbs are encouraged, but not essential.
Comments are closed.
Apologies, comments are closed.
Comments
I made the orzo for our Christmas dinner with friends and it was a huge hit! Everyone loved the orzo, I added Japanese eggplant to it which was amazing with the yogurt dressing! Thank you! This is a must do again recipe! Best for the holidays. Victoria
Wow, I made this last night and what a hit! I couldn’t find delicata squash, so used roasted butternut. Upped the garlic, because I know my audience. Everyone loved it and now I have another, better way of serving kale.
Thanks…your site is great.
Made this tonight for supper using penne pasta (orzo was not in my cupboard at home but in the cupboard at camp) and made it an amazing vegetarian pasta dish for dinner. Next time I will add one more squash as mine was a bit small. I also amped up the dressing. Thanks for the inspiration.
Heidi, I made this for dinner last night and it was fantastic. It was an instant hit with my husband. I only wanted to note that the garlic might be a little overwhelming for some people.
Recipe ideas like this are why I love you Heidi! It’s the kind of thing I can make from memory and riff off of, now that the thought is in my head. Thank you!
Heidi: Awesome wintery salad! My best friend turned me on to your site and I LOVE it and your cookbooks! Thank you for turning out such wonderfully simple recipes that are a joy to make and to eat! In this day & age it’s so wonderful to find a kindred spirit who loves delicious wholesome food in such an uncomplicated way!
Isn’t delicata great? We have so much left over from our fall CSA baskets, I’ll have to use some for this recipe. Thank you!
Obsessed would be putting it mildly when speaking of how I feel about delicata right now. I am all over this recipe. Thanks for sharing it, and I love hearing about the marble.
This was an absolute hit with my (extremely picky) fiance. Worked wonderfully hot and fresh; equally good today as room-temperature lunch. Did end up using all of the yogurt dressing, and next time I’d add a larger relative quantity of roasted veg as the whole dish was orzo-intense. Separately, this is a *genius* way to prepare kale and I will start using that for standalone kale preparation. Thanks for everything Heidi!
Excuse my naivete, but can you eat the squash peels?
Hi Angela – these you can!
The orzo salad looks yummy! I also have marble tops, but the colour is different, it si called brass blue, I think, so it is blue and quite dark… this may be why I have never noticed spills? :-).
Looks beautiful. Orzo is tasty and I really like the cut of those vegetables. Very visually appealing.
Holy wow! This looks delicious, I’ve gotta make this asap!
And I’m not surprised by the amount of marble countertop questions…they’re gorgeous!
This looks so delicious and easy. Your marble countertops are gorgeous and I love that you love to show their natural wear.
This is lovely! How would you veganize it? Is there a alternate dressing you might suggest?
Hi Elyse, you could certainly trade out the yogurt for a favorite vinaigrette if you like, maybe a vinaigrette pureed with toasted walnuts or almonds for a bit of creaminess?
Looks like I know what I’ll be making with the squash sitting on my (sadly, non-marble) counter. Thanks for the inspiration!
Heidi: Awesome wintery salad! My best friend turned me on to your site and I LOVE it and your cookbooks! Thank you for turning out such wonderfully simple recipes that are a joy to make and to eat! In this day & age it’s so wonderful to find a kindred spirit who loves delicious wholesome food in such an uncomplicated way!
This salad sounds delicious – roasting vegetables is my favorite way to eat them! I need to take a side dish to a family dinner next weekend – do you think this would taste just as good cold or at least room temp?
Another recipe of yours that I will instantly go and make! I have a roasted beetroot in the fridge and loads of pumpkin and kale from the garden. Perfect timing, as always!
With regard to turmeric and saffron stains, they are both UV sensitive and break down in sunlight, so if you can direct sunlight onto the stain (should it ever happen) by window or even redirect the light via mirror, the stains will disappear in a couple of hours.
I’ve always dreamed of marble counter tops, especially for the baking and pastry aspect. I am a bit of a neat freak though, and I worry if I could handle the stains as well as you do! But I love how you see the stains as telling a story. How inspiring 🙂 Oh and that orzo salad looks to die for, but i believe that goes without saying.
I like this post for a few reasons. I’m trying to adopt a similar attitude toward our Fireslate countertops, which are a combo of synthetic/natural materials and require tung oil for sealing. Well, with twins who are four (and are boys) we don’t get to take care of things as well as we used to, and apart from the area around the sink, which is not looking so good, the rest of the countertops are holding up well.
Any recipe that has kale and squash is already a winner for me. Even more so when they’re roasted.
Loving this!
I love orzo – especially whole wheat when I can find it. I have been making a similar recipe for years (and very similar to one you’ll find in the prepared food section of Whole Foods), and I add some feta cheese while the pasta is still warm so that it gets a little melty. Yum!
That orzo looks divine, another jazzy vegetable recipe to add to the repertoire!
I love roasted vegetable salads this time of year and have been roasting kale in the oven too as a great way to cook it.
I love–love!–the miso-and-curry-roasted delicata and kale salad from Super Natural Every Day. I sometimes roast the kale for that recipe right along with the delicata by caramelizing the squash in the oven, then adding a layer of kale right on top for a few minutes, then stirring it all together and roasting for a few minutes more. One less pan to wash! I love the contrasting textures, and next time I’ll certainly try that combo with a garlicky yogurt. The efficiency of letting the oven do all the work on the veggies is so satisfying. 🙂
I was amused when I read about peoples concern about marble counter tops and you trying to make them understand how it is so easy to maintain. To be honest in India mostly all kitchen counter tops are of marble!! I remember my mom saying the same thing about lemon like you said. Wipe it before it stains but otherwise we never cared and it was all good 🙂
Your recipe looks mouth watering!! It’s 1 am here and I am hungry now.
Comments are closed.
Apologies, comments are closed.
More Recipes
Weekly recipes and inspirations.
Popular Ingredients