A quick, easy and delicious Mediterranean Orzo Salad that is full of flavour and takes care of the daily workday lunch dilemma in 20 minutes!
Workday lunches. Gaaaaahhh! You feel me?
Not only is it sososo hard to get out of bed in the first place, there are sososo many decisions to be made!! What am I going to wear, what's for breakfast, coffee now or take it in the car? And then you have to deal with trying to fit all that decision making into an extremely small window of time because of the fact that you spent an extra 15 minutes lying in bed, because if you decide what you're going to wear before you get out of bed it will save you so much time. Ha!
So the moral of the story is, if I have ready made lunch in the fridge that I don't have to put any thought into and I can just throw in my bag on the way out the door, and there is one less decision that has to be made, we are winning.
And if the aforementioned pre-packed lunch also happens to involve sundried tomatoes, feta, spinach and orzo and looks like a rainbow, even BETTER!
This Mediterranean Orzo Salad sounds so much fancier than it is, and takes all of 20 minutes to throw together. It also keeps really well in the fridge, so you can make a huge batch on Sunday and if you have amazing self control and don't end up eating it for lunch everyday and dinner when you get home late from dancing, it will last the week.
Is anyone else as obsessed with orzo as I am? It's kind of a cross between rice and pasta - but closer to pasta. And the best thing, it only take about 6 minutes to cook! That's about as close to an instant meal you can get...perfect for a throw together weeknight dinner! If you don't have orzo though, you could definitely use pasta instead.
Cook the orzo, drain and throw in all other ingredients. Baby spinach leaves, sundried tomatoes, feta, chorizo and anything else that tickles your fancy. I used these amazing chorizo sausages that our butcher gave us, but regular sausages or the chorizo sticks from the deli would be awesome too. You could also leave them out completely if you wanted to make this vegetarian. Another great option would be fresh cherry tomatoes if they are in season. Perfect for summer! Add the few dressing ingredients to a jar, shake them together and that's done too.
Toss it all together and lunch is sorted! And the longer it is in the fridge, the more the flavours all merge together to create even MORE deliciousness!
One major morning decision taken care of. I would highly recommend spending the time you are saving on making lunch hitting snooze on your alarm!
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Mediterranean Orzo Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup 200g dried orzo, cooked to package directions
- 2 cups baby spinach leaves
- 3 chorizo sausages
- 150 g feta
- ½ cup sundried tomatoes
Dressing
- ¼ cup olive oil
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- Salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a large bowl toss together all salad ingredients.
- Add all dressing ingredients to a small jar and shake. Taste, and add more salt/pepper/sugar until it is to your liking.
- Pour the dressing over the salad and toss together.
- Store covered in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Molly says
Oily, would make with less oil