This arugula orzo salad combines fresh veggies, leafy greens and fragrant pesto and takes just 20 minutes to come together. It's a delicious hearty summer side dish perfect for a picnic or as a BBQ side dish!
As I'm always on a little mission to make low histamine recipes for all occasions, I've loved making summer sides. This arugula orzo salad can be made with a low histamine pesto (such as my pumpkin seed pesto) and with a gluten free or alternative orzo pasta, if required.
It's a nice potluck or picnic food dish, and goes well with my mango slaw and no mayo potato salad. All have little twists on traditional recipes to keep them more low histamine friendly (of course, be mindful of personal food intolerances).
Jump to:
Ingredients
All the ingredients and their quantities are set out in the recipe card below.
Some notes on a few of them:
- Orzo - a small pasta (known as pastina) that looks like a large grain of rice. As well as regular orzo, you can also use a gluten free or alternative orzo (check the ingredients are suitable for you).
- Pesto - you can use store-bought if that works for you, or a lower histamine version made without dairy if required.
- Arugula - also known as rocket for UK readers, this leafy green has a slight spicy peppery flavor.
- Cucumber - light and refreshing, you can use English cucumber or Persian cucumbers, and peel to preference.
Suggested Add-Ins
Make your orzo salad with arugula even more hearty by adding some mini mozzarella balls or my shredded chicken in air fryer, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds or extra veggies such as diced celery or corn.
How to Make Arugula Orzo Salad
All you need to make this orzo salad is pantry staples, fresh produce and a pot and fine mesh sieve.
All the instructions are in the recipe card below, but these step by step photos should help guide you.
Step 1: Cook the orzo
Cook your orzo pasta to package instructions in lightly salted water. Once cooked, drain and set aside to cool (image 1).
Step 2: Add in pesto sauce
Once the orzo has cooled, stir through the pesto sauce and fluff the grains up with a fork (image 2).
Step 3: Prep the veggies
Dice the red onion, radishes and cucumber into small pieces (image 3).
Step 4: Combine the salad
Add all the veggies and arugula to the bowl with the pesto orzo. Stir to combine, season to preference and add fresh basil leaves for garnish to serve (image 4).
Recipe Tips and Notes
- Adding a teaspoon of olive oil to the orzo as it cools can help prevent sticking. Use a fork to separate the 'grains' if needed.
- Adjust the amount of pesto used to preference.
- Dice the veggies into small pieces, of a roughly similar size.
More Salads
Choose from lots of low histamine salads, including my cucumber beet salad and apple cucumber salad, as well as these recent recipes:
I'm always in the kitchen, so come join me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest to be the first to hear of new recipes! And I love to hear from you, so please do leave a star rating and comment if you've tried the recipe!
📖 Recipe
Arugula Orzo Salad
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups orzo dry quantity
- pinch salt
- 2-3 tablespoon pesto adjust amount to preference
- ¼ red onion finely diced*
- 3 cups arugula also known as rocket for UK readers
- ⅓ English cucumber diced into half moons
- 4 radishes sliced
- basil leaves for garnish
- pinch black pepper optional
Instructions
- Cook your orzo to package instructions, adding a pinch of salt. Drain in a fine mesh sieve and set aside to cool. You can drizzle a teaspoon of olive oil on the orzo to help prevent sticking.
- Once the orzo has cooled, stir through the pesto sauce.
- Dice the vegetables into small pieces.
- Combine the orzo and vegetables in a large bowl. Season with salt and black pepper, to preference. Stir to combine, and garnish with fresh basil leaves to serve.
Notes
- I suggest that my low histamine readers use a suitable homemade pesto. There are lots of options on the site including my pumpkin seed pesto and pesto without pine nuts.
- A gluten free orzo can be used, if required.
- Use a fork to separate the grains of orzo if there is any sticking.
- Nutritional information is auto-generated and should be understood to be an estimate.
- orzo (wheat) scores 1 and has a ? as a liberator.
- pesto will depend on ingredients used.
- neither red onion or arugula are mentioned. Neither are on the 'limit / avoid' section of the British Dietetic Association histamine list.
Comments
No Comments