Orzo Pesto Salad (A GREAT 4th of July Side Dish!)

Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. It's so good to be back here in France and I wanted to just post this video a little bit early because this is a fantastic salad to make for 4th of July weekend. This recipe also happens to appear in my new cookbook. So if you already have your copy, you can find it on page 87. And if you're new to my channel and don't know about my cookbook, here it is. Ready for sale, 101 recipes that I think every host should know how to make, including this orzo pesto salad. It makes for a great summer potluck. So the first thing we're gonna do is make our homemade pesto. If you don't have time for homemade pesto, you can just use a store-bought brand. I would just get the kind that's refrigerated that comes in like the little plastic tub as opposed to something in a jar because I just find it's a little bit fresher has better flavor. So two cups of basil leaves going into our food processor here. Also wanna add three tablespoons of pine nuts, one garlic clove that you've minced. I like to mince the garlic ahead of time rather than throwing the clove in there because I just think you get a better distribution of garlic flavor than leaving it to chance with a food processor. Then you're also going to add a half a teaspoon of salt. Then process on high. And it should look like this, minced but not really too pureed. Then with the machine running, you're going to add a half a cup of olive oil. And just add it a little bit at a time, making sure it's incorporating with the pesto. And about halfway, you can scrape down the bowl just to make sure everything is combining. There, then you'll have a lovely pesto sauce that you can transfer to a bowl. And then you're gonna add a quarter cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. I do think you get better flavor and texture if you grate it yourself. So I would just go ahead and buy yourself a nice wedge of Parmesan, keep it in your fridge, it lasts for a very long time. And then you can grate it on pasta as needed, and then you'll have it for your pesto. So you can set this aside and then we're gonna boil our pasta. Okay, so for this recipe, I really like to use orzo pasta. A lot of people who haven't had it before, at first they think it's rice, because it looks like little rice. But I find there's something just a little bit more delicious about it for a cold salad than a rice salad. If you can't find orzo pasta, you could use little mini shells or a mini macaroni, that would also work. Then be sure to salt your water, this is just going to give your pasta a lot more flavor. The Italians say it should taste like the sea. Then once your water is boiling, go ahead and add the pasta. And do give it a stir so that it doesn't stick to the bottom. Okay, I know there are people out there that will hate this, but give it a drizzle of olive oil. Because this pasta really sticks to the bottom. Just look the other way, those people who don't like oil in the pasta water. About 10 to 11 minutes and it'll be done. Then once your pasta is cooked and drained, you can transfer it to a large mixing bowl. See how much this makes? This really does expand. When you're pouring it into the pot, you think it's not gonna make very much, but once it expands, it definitely does. Look at this, this could feed an army. I would say 68 people if you're serving it as a side dish. Then we're gonna add the pesto sauce right on top. If you are using store-bought, I think this is probably about a half a cup. I would just keep adding it until you feel like all of your pasta has been covered, but I would start at a half a cup. Okay, then once your pasta is all coated, then we're gonna add these delicious little mix-ins to it. You wanna add 3 1⁄4 cup of sliced sun-dried tomatoes. I also love to add a half a cup of pine nuts because the pine nuts are almost the same size as the orzo and it creates kind of this nice little crunch that's unexpected because it blends in with the orzo so you don't really see it coming. But when it comes, you're so appreciative. So delicious because it's sort of buttery and crunchy. What really makes this salad so delicious and summery are the sugar snap peas. For some reason, I could not find them here in France and I could only find these snow peas. Snow peas are just flatter than a sugar snap pea, which is a little bit more oval and kind of fatter, a little bit more flavor, but these are still good. Okay, now for the cheese. Years ago, I used to make this salad with small pearl mozzarella, but my husband started putting goat cheese in the salad and we went back and forth on which is better. I totally think he's right with the goat cheese. So if you don't like goat cheese, stick with the mozzarella, but if you wanna try it with the goat cheese, I highly recommend it. And then a just finishing touch is a little bit of julienne basil on top just to make it super pretty and extra summery. I hope you guys give this one a try and let me know what you think. And if you haven't had a chance to purchase the cookbook, the link is in the description. There's a ton of wonderful summer recipes in here as well as recipes to last throughout the year. All right, you guys, I'll see you back here next time. Until then, bye.