Anyone who knows me is well aware of the following: I love pasta, I love pasta with peas in it, and if you add both artichoke hearts and peas to pasta, then I’m a happy girl. So I came across this great recipe featuring all 3 components, and I knew I had to try it. I’ve never cooked with Orzo before. I remember once that I bought orzo, but I ended up throwing away the box a few years later because I didn’t know what to do with it and it had gone bad.
When I stumbled upon this recipe on the Fit Sugar site, I was thrilled. First off, Fit Sugar is a really great site on health, fitness, and overall well-being. They feature great articles and provide a plethora of information. I highly recommend checking it out. In addition to great articles, they also give you fun recipes to try.
So more on this orzo dish…The recipe called for whole wheat orzo, which is not the easiest thing to find. I just stuck with non-whole wheat simply out of convenience, but it would be stellar with whole wheat orzo. Also making an appearance in this dish are artichoke hearts (I used canned – so good!), peas (they called for fresh English peas, but I used frozen peas that I thawed and they worked perfectly), shallots, and fresh basil just to name a few ingredients.
With all of these great components in the dish, you really don’t need much fat. In total there was 1 T. olive oil for the entire dish and 1/2 t. of sea salt, for those of you watching your sodium. Extra flavor was added to the dish by incorporating chicken or vegetable broth (I ended up using vegetable stock just to give it some deeper flavor) and then lemon juice brightens up each bite.
When you can make a pasta dish like this where it’s full of flavor, veggies, and low in fat, you can’t go wrong. You can finish the dish by peeling some fresh Parmesan cheese over the top, which I decided to do…delicious! I ate the dish on its own, but it would be great with some chicken or fish too. I highly recommend this simple and easy to make dish. It was the perfect dinner on a hot summer night!
Click here for the recipe and step by step directions!
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