This pesto orzo salad is one of those recipes that comes together quickly with simple ingredients and always feels fresh and flavorful. It is perfect for any occasion!

Tender orzo is tossed with a vibrant pesto, sweet tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella to create a dish that works just as well for a weekend brunch as it does for a backyard BBQ and everything in between.

Why Make This Pesto Orzo Salad

There are a few reasons we would encourage you to make this pasta salad. First, as we mentioned, it is fresh and bright and so versatile. It’s one of those pasta salads that can liven up a bbq or you can pull out of the fridge and have for lunch. Second, it’s really easy to pull together. This is the cardinal rule of cooking for us! If it’s not easy- we don’t want it! Finally, it’s also one of our favorite make-ahead recipes the kind you can keep in the fridge and pull out when needed.

We love making it on a Sunday and having leftovers throughout the week. Every day it gets better and better. We love serving this pesto orzo salad at a bbq or a weekend brunch or lunch.

Love Pasta? Try Some of Our Other Pasta Dishes!

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Tips for This Yummy Pesto Orzo Salad:

The best tip we can give you: Rinse the pasta as soon as it is drained.

Typically when making traditional pasta, you would never rinse. That starch helps the pasta stick to whatever sauce you are serving even if it’s just pasta with butter. However, when you are making pasta salad you want to rinse the cooked pasta because you want it to be more like a pilaf and have each grain separated. Rinsing the pasta with cold water and then completely drying it will stop the orzo from cooking, and keep plump.

Like all pasta salads this one tastes best when it is cold. You can make it in advance and have it sit in the fridge for up to 24 hours before serving.

We strong suggest tasting your pasta salad before serving. In the fridge, the flavors can intensify or others may mellow. Taste it to see if you need to add some salt, pepper, more pesto or even some olive oil to bring it back.

Keep in mind you can also boil, drain and keep the pasta in the fridge for a day before adding anything to it. Just add a tablespoon of olive oil to make sure it doesn’t stick together.

Substitutions:

The pasta – We do call it orzo salad but you can substitute it with almost any other short pasta. A pasta like ditalini, stars, lumachine or acini de pepe work the best in this recipe because they are very small and mimic the same texture.

The pesto – We love making our homemade pesto because we control what we put in it. We like our pesto to have a little less garlic and more nuts than cheese. If you’d rather use a store bought version we get it. We recommend using a pesto that is refrigerated because it’s usually a lot more fresh and resembles a homemade version, unlike a pesto that may be sitting on the shelves for a while.

Add ins – We keep the add-ins to this pretty simple. You can add whatever you like. Sundried tomatoes, roasted peppers, red onion, and more parmigiano are always a good idea. We know it’s tempting to want to add the mini mozzarella balls (ciliegine or bocconcini) to this recipe because you don’t have to cut anything up, but those balls are tasteless and really rob the flavor of the salad.

Serve this Orzo Pasta Salad With:

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