By Eric Kim
- Total Time
- 30 minutes, plus 30 minutes’ marinating
- Rating
- 4(304)
- Notes
- Read community notes
A sun-dried tomato vinaigrette uses both the tomatoes and the aromatic oil in which they are stored for a deeply savory pasta meal. The vinaigrette serves double duty here as both a marinade for the tender chicken thigh morsels and a sauce for the orzo and feta. This dish tastes lovely warm, right off the heat, but it also makes for a wonderful cold lunch, like something you might find at an Italian American deli or salad bar.
Featured in: A Better Boneless Chicken Dinner
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Ingredients
Yield:4 servings
- 8sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, plus 6 tablespoons oil from the jar
- 2cups tightly packed fresh basil leaves
- 2tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 1teaspoon red-pepper flakes
- Kosher salt and black pepper
- 1pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into ½-inch cubes
- 1large tomato, cut into ½-inch dice
- 1pound orzo
- 1(4-ounce) block feta, cut into ½-inch cubes
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)
843 calories; 34 grams fat; 7 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 17 grams monounsaturated fat; 8 grams polyunsaturated fat; 91 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 7 grams sugars; 43 grams protein; 789 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
Step
1
In a food processor, blitz the sun-dried tomatoes and their oil, the basil, vinegar, red-pepper flakes, 1½ teaspoons salt and ½ teaspoon pepper until smooth. Transfer half of this vinaigrette to a medium bowl, add the chicken and turn to evenly coat. Cover and refrigerate the chicken for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.
Step
2
While the chicken marinates, transfer the rest of the vinaigrette to a large bowl. Add the diced tomato and toss.
Step
3
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the orzo and cook until al dente, stirring occasionally. Drain the orzo and transfer it to the bowl with the tomato; toss to combine.
Step
4
Heat a large skillet over medium-high. Add the chicken with its marinade and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden on all sides and no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Transfer the cooked chicken and all of its juices to the orzo. Add the feta and toss to combine. Taste and add more salt as desired. Serve warm or at room temperature, or refrigerate, covered, and enjoy cold for up to 4 days.
Ratings
4
out of 5
304
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Cooking Notes
Bonnie SF
Very tasty! However, I think the amount of orzo should be halved - I increased the chicken to 1.5 lbs and the feta to 6 oz, but still the orzo swamped it completely. The photo illustrating this recipe is not the balance of ingredients in my experience. I'll make this again, but with 1/2 lb of orzo.
Greg
Variation, not improvement: I was very interested in this recipe, so I made it with what I had on hand--tofu, not chicken. It worked pretty well. I added artichoke hearts and green olives to the mix to get body that I would lose without the chicken. Right call. Overall, very happy, and will prepare again. But, I look forward to trying the recipe with chicken soon, also.
WW
This is good! And easy. Makes enough for dinner for 3 & lunch for one the next day. Toasted pine nuts would make a nice garnish! I like the fact that it can be served cold, hot, or room temp- very versatile & unfussy.
Brandi
This is good. Definitely marinate the chicken for a few hours, and I put all of the marinade in with the chicken. I added some diced onions, garlic, Italian seasoning to the cooking chicken and then a half cup of white wine for a little extra sauce because there isn’t enough with the marinade for a pound of orzo. It adds some depth to it. Cook the orzo in chicken broth or chicken bouillon and water. Much better than just water alone.
sueflblue
I thought this was very tasty! However the chicken itself was quite bland….it did not absorb the flavor of the marinade at all despite marinating for more than an hour. If I make it again I will put more marinade with the meat and let it marinade longer.
Kristen
Veggies chic and added spinach at the end of the pasta cooking
Barry
Tasty. Heat was okay for me but too much for my wife. Next time I will reduce red pepper flakes to 1/2 tsp.
Portland
I made this according to the recipe with the addition of Kalamata olives and halved the orzo per home cook suggestion. It was bland and I will not make this again, even when I tried to amp it up with additional salt, pepper, and dried red pepper. Definitely, if you make it, halve the orzo.
Florida linda
I made this as I understood it. I liked it a lot both for dinner and lunch the next day. My husband and guest found it too oily. We all found the chicken bland despite being marinated for several hours. My husband faulted the quality of the oil in the supermarket sun dried tomatoes which was all they had. I will search for higher quality sun dried tomatoes. Question, could we have a more exact measurement for sun dried tomatoes? The tomatoes were in pieces so I found that confusing.
Kaylee
Made this, but accidentally used too many sundried tomatoes. I loved it! It was less of a dressing and more of a sauce, like the red pesto recipe also on this site. Served this with dollops of ricotta. I could have added even more feta!
Nicole
Delicious and easy weeknight dinner. I used 1/2 pound of orzo but kept everything else the same and it turned out perfect. Highly recommend!
Mary
loved this!!
psham
I added way more sun dried tomatoes plus it’s oil. I also added a few garlic cloves and it was a game changer. I agree, the amount of orzo can easily be halved. The store ran out of chicken thighs so I grabbed breast tenders. Next time I will add an additional tomato because one wasn’t enough.
Jeremy
Was short on basil (only 1/2 c. or so) and sundried tomato oil (my 250 ml jar only contained about 1/4 c. oil). Topped up the oil with olive oil. Halved the orzo as other commenters suggested. It was great. I'm sure it'd be even better if I'd had more basil.
EricP
This recipe was really good. And, shockingly, we followed the recipe exactly.
Luther
A really good recipe, with a couple exceptions. You will need more olive oil than called for because of the amount of basil. As others have mentioned, there is an imbalance between the pasta/chicken/tomato/feta. Upped chicken to 1.5lbs and feta to 5oz. Chicken definitely needs a minimum of 6 hours marinating unless you have something like the STX International STX-1000-CE Chef's Elite vacuum marinade machine. Leftovers are equally good if perhaps not a little better. Thanks for this.
MAMMUTHUS
Absolutely delicious, would strongly recommend. My only suggestion is that I don't think the quantity of vinaigrette is quite enough. We made ours with leftover chicken from the bbq and so put the full amount of vinaigrette into the orzo (and slightly less than suggested, 400g). This was perfect, but I think if we had followed the recipe literally it wouldn't have been the right amount. That aside, we loved this dish.
chelsea
Not bad, but definitely needed quite a fair bit more salt and pepper than noted in recipe. Of course it is to taste but I found it pretty bland pre-additional S & P. I also added some garlic & onion (fresh in marinade/sauce, bit of powdered garlic too) and I think it helped add a bit more dimension too. And I just used up my feta - more like 6 oz. Really enjoyed it! Definitely got more than 4 servings with this amount of orzo.
Monique
How can you reheat this dish?
CMR
After reading notes about the marinade being too sparse I doubled the quantities for that part alone and wound up with a very flavorful dinner that closely resembled the image in the original recipe. Also used a thin chicken broth (1/2 broth to 1/2 water) for the orzo and marinated the chicken for 1.5 hours.
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