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This delicious recipe for super creamy Orzo with lemon, tomato confit and Parmesan is super quick and easy to make. It's a tasty, melt-in-your-mouth dish that brings spring and sunshine back to your plate. What's more, you'll only needone pan, so no more washing up!
If you like creamy pasta recipes, you'll love this one with eggplant caviar and burrata, these with leek, mozzarella and red onion or these with Gorgonzola cream and mushrooms.
Table des matières
💙 Why you'll love them
- Everything is done in a single pan, so you'll have very few dishes to wash, and that's handy.
- They're quick and easy.
- They are creamy and delicious.
🍋 Ingredients
These are the main ingredients, and the quantities can be found in the recipe card below.
- Orzo pasta, also known as bird's tongue pasta, Risetti, Risoni or Puntalette, depending on the brand. These are small rice-shaped pasta shapes, often found in Mediterranean or Oriental cuisine. They are perfect in salads, soups or even as a main course. You'll find them in supermarkets and Italian grocery stores.
- Heavy cream, ideal for the sauce and to make this dish creamy and smooth.
- We'll use the whole lemon, with its juice and zest.
- Yellow or whiteonion. Avoid red onions for this recipe.
- Garlic - if you want to choose your garlic carefully so you do not encourage the slavery of Chinese prisoners, read my Eco Tips on the subject.
- Parmesan cheese: I recommend using a block of Parmesan cheese, which you can grate yourself - it's so much better!
- Fresh basil if possible. Otherwise frozen or dried.
- Tomato confit: also known as sun-dried tomatoes, these are really delicious.
- Spinach shoots, not to be confused with leaf spinach, which is much larger and less tender.
- Click here to make your own vegetable bouillon cubes. It's so easy, and so much healthier and tastier.
✅ Vegan and dairy-free version
- To make this recipe vegan, replace the heavy cream with vegetable cream and the Parmesan cheese with the vegan cheese of your choice. Often, pasta is already vegan because it is made from durum wheat semolina. It's rarer to see pasta with fresh eggs, and when you do, it's clearly stated on the packaging.
- To make this recipe dairy-free, choose a dairy-free heavy cream (it does exist). You can also replace the Parmesan with small pieces of dairy-free mozzarella.
🥰 The chef's advice
To make this Orzo recipe a success, you need to add the stock a little at a time, just as you would in a risotto - never add it all at once. The idea is to add broth, let it evaporate, add more... and so on until the pasta is cooked.
💡 Frequently Asked Questions
I advise you to make them at the last minute, so that the pasta is as creamy and smooth as possible.
Of course you can! It's what I personally love to do, because I find that store-bought tomatoes are often too dry. I recommend using cherry tomatoes. Cut them in half and place them in a dish. Brush them with olive oil, salt and oregano, then put them in a hot oven at 250°F/120°C for 1h30 to 2h, turning them over halfway through cooking.
❄️Storage
You can store these Orzo in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days.
When reheating, I recommend adding one or two tablespoons of vegetable stock or water, to make the pasta smooth and creamy again. Then just pop them in the microwave.
😋 Other delicious pastas
- Pasta with shrimp and Alfredo sauce
- Creamy lemon & mascarpone linguine
- Spinach and goat cheese lasagna
If you make this creamy lemon Orzo, it would be so nice to leave me a comment and rate the recipe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. You can also tag me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook or Tik Tok, or even send me a photo, I love seeing my little dishes in your homes!
📖 Recette
Creamy lemon orzo
Ingredients
- ½ onion
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 ⅓ cups orzo pasta
- ⅛ cup heavy cream
- 1 lemon
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese freshly grated
- 3-4 sun-dried tomatoes
- 4.5 oz baby spinach
- 3 cups vegetable broth
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- fresh basil
- fine salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Finely chop the garlic and onion, then sauté in a pan with olive oil until translucent.
- Add the orzo and cook for a minute, stirring constantly. Then add the baby spinach and, little by little, the stock. Cook over high heat for the time indicated on the packaging, stirring frequently.
- At the end of the cooking time, remove from the heat and add the cream, grated zest from a large whole lemon, lemon juice from half the lemon, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.
- Arrange on plates, add the sun-dried tomatoes and sprinkle with fresh basil.
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