Chicken & Lemon Orzo

Chicken & Lemon Orzo

Recently, I've started having Orzo pasta more and more. I love Risotto and cant get enough of it and all of the different dishes you can create with it, but I'm beginning to prefer eating Orzo. 

This recipe is actually one of my own. I was struggling to decide what to cook one night and fancied something easy. I know how easy Orzo is to cook from the Spinach & Chorizo Orzo recipe I make (you can find it on this blog) so I just needed to think of the other ingredients I needed.

I've made a Chicken & Lemon Risotto before, a recipe by Mary Berry, and I really love that so I decided to do a similar recipe to have with Orzo. For the chicken, I diced and then poached it because I love the flavour and texture of poached chicken. The rest was so easy to do.

I'd really recommend cooking with Orzo pasta. You can do so much with it and it has a delicate texture to it, one that pairs well with so many foods. Just be creative with your Orzo's and Risotto's and make them your own.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

• 2 large or 3 medium chicken breasts, diced
• 500 ml chicken stock
• Oil
• 1 brown onion, finely diced
• 2 carrots, peeled and grated
• 4 garlic cloves, finely diced
• 1tsp dried thyme
• 1 lemon
• 350g - 400g Orzo pasta, depending on how hungry you are
• Enough boiling water to cover the orzo pasta, with 2 stock cubes too

Method:

1. Add the chicken stock to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once it's boiling, drop the heat to a simmer and add your chicken. If there's too much chicken and it's not covered then add more stock. Cook this for about 12 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
2. Add some oil to a deep frying pan and fry the onion and carrots for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme and fry for a further minute. Add your chicken to the pan and mix to coat everything, then pour in your Orzo and mix to coat again.
3. Pour the boiling water over the Orzo until it's covered and crumble the stock cubes into the pan then mix.
4. Cover with a lid and cook for 10-15 minutes until the pasta is cooked through. Stir regularly and add more boiling water if necessary.
5. Once it's all cooked, add the zest of a lemon and enough lemon juice to your preference. Serve & enjoy!