Orzo Salad

My mom gave me the recipe last year for a salad that she got at an enrichment meeting at church, and it is the best salad ever (like, I would pay money for this salad in a restaurant, it’s so good). While we were in Utah we got stocked up on some of the ingredients from Costco – like the craisins and pine nuts. And so we were making it about once a week – I would make up a big batch and we’d have it for dinner one night and then I’d have leftovers for lunch the next few days until it ran out (thanks, Grandma, for giving me one of your salad bowls with the tight-fitting lids, that really helps to let the salads last for more than just a day in the fridge). This salad is great, the only catch is you need homemade raspberry vinegar to make the salad dressing. (And we’ve tried the salad with different dressings from the store, and it just isn’t very good). My mom made up jars of the raspberry vinegar and gave us some, and we were using those until we ran out and were forced to make our own. Technically, she said that the jars are supposed to sit for a year before the vinegar is ready, but she was told that 3 months would be enough time. So, I just made my first batch of raspberry vinegar at the beginning of this month (so now I still have a little over 2 months to wait for my salad). I took pictures when I first made the raspberry vinegar, and now after sitting for a few weeks with the raspberries the vinegar is a dark red color. So, here’s the recipe for the best salad you’ve ever had:

So, the raspberry vinegar is really easy to make, it just takes some planning in advance. You take jars and put in a handful of raspberries and then fill them up with normal rice vinegar. Then let sit for at least 3 months.

Red Raspberry Orzo Salad
Orzo (a pasta that is cut small, about the size of rice – I’ve found it in two different shapes, either rice shaped or tear-drop shaped)
Toasted Pine Nuts
Feta Cheese
Craisins
Chopped Spinach

Dressing
¼ C red raspberry vinegar
½ C extra virgin olive oil
1T Italian seasoning (spice)
2 cloves minced garlic
Salt & Pepper to taste

I had to adjust these measurements for the dressing a lot – it took me a couple tries before I got it just right, but it tastes way to oily if you add this much oil. Also, I like to mix up a bigger batch of the dressing so I don’t have to make the dressing every time we want to eat the salad – I got a few of the larger squirt ketchup bottles from Costco and washed them out after we used the ketchup, and they make perfect bottles for salad dressing. Just make sure you shake up the dressing really well each time before you use it. Also, I don’t put the dressing on the salad unless I’m serving it at a church event or something – if you just let everyone put dressing on the salad on their plates, then the leftover salad will last a lot longer if it doesn’t have the dressing on it in the fridge.

Oh, and one thing that I had to figure out about this recipe when I first started making it was the fact that there aren’t any measurements, but what I usually do is make up a package of orzo (the ones I’ve found are usually 1 lb), and then add the rest of the ingredients accordingly so there’s enough to go with how much orzo I’ve made up.

Enjoy!