creamy chicken, leek, and sun-dried tomato orzotto
in under 30 minutes! in one pot!
We’ve been eating quite healthily around here lately. This past week, you guys went bananas for my farro remix on fattoush salad. The week before, we all freaked out over how delicious roasted vegetables can be when sauced up with a creamy herby cashew sauce.
So it’s time to put the “ish” in the “healthy-ish” designation of What To Cook. We’re making a one-pot orzotto (orzo cooked risotto style) that is packed with lean protein and three different nutritious vegetables, but that also contains a solid amount of cream and cheese. Because sometimes we’re in the mood for the “ish.”
If you’ve never cooked with leeks, this is such a great introduction. They’re just coming into season, and their mellow, sweet onion flavor really comes through in this pasta and is complemented so nicely by the sun-dried tomatoes. We’re adding huge handfuls of spinach because I cannot resist incorporating greens when they add so much nutrition and meld seamlessly into a recipe. I did, of course, serve my children their portions before adding the spinach.
It’s a creamy, super flavorful, one-pot welcome to spring.
One note: This recipe makes a lot of pasta. It drives me insane how I always wind up with the weirdest amounts of leftover orzo that then sit in my pantry for months (years?!), and I’m guilty of writing orzo recipes that call for only 1 or 1 1/2 cups myself. But not today! I wrote this recipe to use up an entire 16-ounce box/bag of orzo, as well as the entire pint of heavy cream, because that’s another ingredient that is constantly going bad in my fridge when I buy it, use a little, and then forget it exists until it’s gone full science experiment. Plus — leftovers rule.
This pasta reheats like a dream (add a splash of hot water, and microwave or stir in a skillet over medium heat). It also freezes and reheats beautifully (freeze in a Ziploc or Souper Cube, place the frozen block of pasta in a pot with a splash of water, cover and heat over medium-low heat, stirring often, until it thaws). So why would we not just go ahead and cook extra to set our future selves up for success!?
You can, of course, halve the recipe if you don’t want leftovers, but… trust me. Make the full recipe.
Or! Use this as an opportunity to invite some friends over for dinner. Serve this orzotto, add a simple side salad from this list (with the salad dressing you’ll find in the notes section beneath today’s recipe), and a baguette!
Creamy chicken and mushroom orzotto. Swap the leek for a minced shallot. Cook the chicken, then remove it from the skillet to a plate, cook 1 pound of mushrooms with the shallot in 2 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat. Once tender, stir in a big pinch of kosher salt, then return the chicken to the pan and continue with the recipe as written, minus the sun-dried tomatoes (or keep them if you love them!).
Creamy chicken, spinach, and artichoke orzotto. Swap in 1 can of drained, finely chopped artichokes for the sun-dried tomatoes.
Creamy sausage, leek, and sun-dried tomato orzotto. Cook a pound of mild or spicy Italian sausage in the skillet (you’ll only need to use 1 tablespoon oil instead of 2) — no need to add the spices, it will already have a ton of flavor. Once browned, drain off the grease and continue with the recipe.
This one-pot lemony garlic butter shrimp orzo is another fab spring meal, starring asparagus and green peas. It’s a bit lighter than today’s recipe — there’s no heavy cream — and it has a bright and tangy flavor profile with the lemon. This time last year we were cooking springy sheet-pan gnocchi, which remains a huge fan-fave. And for another delicious spin on orzo, try one-pot mushroom orzo carbonara, in which we use egg yolks to thicken and cream-ify things.
