This straightforward, one-pot, 30-minute Creamy Pesto Orzo is loaded with ground meat, veggies, and orzo pasta. Plus: minimal chopping, minimal dish clean-up, and minimal hands-on time. What’s not to love?!
home cooks enjoy creamy pasta dishes, especially when they’re light like this one! No heavy cream, no half-and-half, and minimal butter! Try some of our other lighter pasta dishes next time, like this Chicken Penne Pasta or this Chicken Broccoli Alfredo.
Creamy Pesto Orzo
This dish is the reliable straightforward weeknight meal! It’s not only loaded with flavor and texture, but it’s also filled with some good-for-you ingredients and packed with protein. Between the ground meat, peas, and whole milk, you’ll be amazed how much protein is in this dish! I personally love adding protein (plant-based or animal-based) to dinner recipes for my family, because they’re so much more filling and satiating. And that’s important for my active little kiddos — especially as the weather warms up and they’re outside playing hard.
Beyond how filling it is, it’s also ridiculously straightforward to make and the clean-up is pretty minimal. While it’s a creamy and hearty dish, the pesto adds freshness and lightness to the meal. And we’re actually not using all that much butter (2 tablespoons for the whole recipe!), plus no heavy creams or half-and-half. So, yes, it’s creamy, but in a lighter way than a typical heavy Alfredo sauce.
Ground meat
This Creamy Pesto Orzo works great with either ground chicken or ground turkey. Use whichever your family prefers! If using ground chicken, I’d recommend ground chicken thighs if they’re available. That way, the meat will be nice and juicy in the end dish!
For ground turkey, It is worth ground turkey that is sold in a carton, rather than in a chub. Chub-style ground turkey is the kind that comes in the plastic tube and it tends to be less flavorful. It is worth 93/7% ground turkey (home cooks enjoy JennieO® or Butterball® ground turkey). We’ve found 99/1% ground turkey to be far too dry and flavorless.
Sometimes grocery stores sell seasoned ground turkey (taco flavored or similar) and it’s straightforward to mistake for regular ground turkey. Be sure to select plain, unseasoned ground meat for this recipe.
Let’s Talk Pesto
Since the pesto is a big part of this Creamy Pesto Orzo, make sure you use a really tasty one. You can of course make your own, but if you’re looking to save some time (this dish is supposed to be super quick and simple after all!), I’d recommend getting a refrigerated, freshly-made basil pesto, which you can find near refrigerated fresh pastas and gourmet cheeses. Rana’s® Basil Pesto is my personal favorite store-bought pesto sauce (not sponsored).
Freshly made pesto can certainly be spendy, but it lasts a good amount of time and a little goes a long way to add loads of flavor to so many dishes.
Consider adding some leftover pesto to some of a reliable dishes like:
- Pesto and Sausage meal made in tin foil packets
- Pesto Pizza made on Naan (super quick!)
- Creamy Pesto Pasta with sun-dried tomatoes
- Pesto Chicken Tortellini straightforward 30-minute meal
- Pesto Chicken with a Corn and Bean salsa
What’s orzo?
Although orzo looks a bit like rice, it’s not a grain. Orzo is a type of short-cut pasta that looks like larger grains of rice. It also goes by the names risoni and risi, and they’re all the same thing: small pasta made from durum and semolina wheat. In Italian, orzo means barley…and that’s what it looks like, too! Because of its small size, orzo is a kid favorite and goes well in soups and salad. You’ll find orzo on the pasta aisle of most grocery stores.
It’s a common misconception that rice and Orzo can be interchanged, but they are different and won’t cook the same in this recipe. This is pasta, not rice, so it cooks much quicker and is creamier in this recipe.
Creamy Pesto Orzo tips
- Prep everything before you start cooking. This is a dish where the cooking goes pretty quickly, so you want to make sure to have everything cut up and ready to go before starting.
- Seasonings. This dish doesn’t have a whole lot of seasoning because it’s relying on the chicken stock (which has plenty of seasonings already), the Parmesan cheese, the pesto (which typically has more Parmesan cheese as well), and the salt and pepper. That said, you still might need a pinch extra at the end — don’t be afraid to add more salt and pepper until the flavors sing.
- Use whole milk. While 1% or 2% milk will work, I highly recommend whole milk in this recipe — we don’t find it creamy or flavorful enough with lower fat percentages of milk.
- Use a large, nonstick pot and stir often. The orzo pasta cooks up better in a nonstick pot and being stirred frequently. Without being stirred frequently, it can catch and clump at the bottom of the pot.
More straightforward Pasta Dishes
- Zucchini Pasta Sauce with spaghetti noodles
- Mediterranean Pasta Salad with a lemon vinaigrette
- Broccoli Grape Pasta Salad with a creamy dressing
- Red and White Pasta only four ingredients!
- Chicken Tortellini with broccoli
Ingredients
- 1-1/2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 cup finely diced yellow onion
- 2 teaspoons finely minced garlic (2 to 3 cloves)
- 1 pound ground turkey (93/7; or ground chicken—thigh meat preferred)
- Salt
- 1-1/2 cups frozen corn
- 1-1/2 cups frozen sweet peas
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 cups chicken stock (or broth, It is satisfying to Swanson)
- 2-1/4 cups whole milk (see note 1)
- 1-1/2 cups uncooked orzo pasta
- 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (see note 2)
- 1/2 cup basil pesto (see note 3)
- 1/3 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley (skippable)
Method
- Finely chop the onion and garlic and set out the rest of the ingredients—cooking goes quickly!
- Heat olive oil in a large (nonstick) pot over a hot burner. Add onion and stir for about 5 minutes or until turning golden; add in garlic and stir for 30 seconds. Add ground turkey and season with salt and pepper. (I add 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.) Cook, crumbling as you cook, until mostly cooked through, about 5 minutes. Add in frozen corn and peas (no need to thaw). Stir for 1–2 minutes or until veggies are thawed and meat is fully through. Dump this entire mixture onto a plate or bowl and cover with foil.
- Return the pot to burner. Melt the butter, whisk in the flour, and cook and stir for 1 minute. Gradually add in the stock, whisking constantly. Add in the milk and all the uncooked orzo.
- Bring the mixture to a simmer, then lower the heat until it is just barely bubbling at the edges. Cook for 7 minutes without a lid, stirring occasionally and scraping the bottom of the pot so the orzo does not stick. After 7 minutes, the pasta should be almost tender (the mixture will still be soupy). Add the plate of veggies and ground turkey to the pot and stir. Add the Parmesan and stir to melt. Mix in pesto and skippable parsley. Mix well. Taste and season to taste with any additional salt and pepper as needed—the salt and pepper really pull all the flavors together.
- Consistency should be similar to risotto and very creamy. Add a splash of milk if needed to thin consistency a bit. Enjoy while hot.
