Creamy Lemon Orzo with Spinach

Ingredients

• 12 oz / 340 g Orzo pasta
• 2 Tbsp Olive oil
• 1 small (about 70 g) Yellow onion, finely diced
• 3 Garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cups / 480 ml Low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1½ cups / 360 ml Water
• 5 oz / 142 g Baby spinach
• 1 Lemon, zest and juice
• ½ cup / 120 ml Heavy cream
• ½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• ½ tsp Kosher salt
• ¼ tsp Black pepper
• To taste Fresh parsley, chopped, for serving (optional)

Method

1. Finely dice the onion. Mince the garlic. Zest the lemon, then cut it in half and juice it. Keep the zest and the juice together so both go into the skillet.
2. Warm the olive oil in a wide skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and the salt. Cook, stirring now and then, until the onion is soft, about 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook 30 seconds. Do not let the garlic brown.
3. Add the dry orzo. Stir for 1 minute, until the grains look glossy from the oil. They will not be cooked yet.
4. Pour in the vegetable broth and the water. Bring the skillet to a simmer. Cook, stirring often, until the orzo is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed, about 10–12 minutes. If the pan goes dry before the orzo is tender, add a splash of water. That splash is extra. It is not part of the measured 1½ cups.
5. Lower the heat. Stir in the cream, the spinach, the lemon zest, the lemon juice, the parmesan, and the pepper. Cook 1–2 minutes, until the spinach wilts and the sauce looks creamy. The spinach cooks down a lot. The orzo should be loose enough to spoon, not dry and not soupy.
6. Taste. The salt already in the onion is the measured salt. Add a pinch more only if the orzo tastes flat. A little chopped parsley on top is optional. Serve 4 bowls. It keeps covered in the fridge for a few days. Reheat a bowl with a splash of water so the orzo stays soft.

Nutrition

Kitchen estimate only, not lab-verified. Counted as 1 of 4 bowls from this skillet: the orzo, onion, garlic, broth, water, spinach, lemon, cream, parmesan, salt, and pepper. Parsley, a splash of extra water, and any extra salt at the end are not in the count. The estimate uses a standard vegetable-broth row, so a low-sodium carton will land lower in sodium.

Guest diet / allergy swaps

Short kitchen notes for guests. A fuller gluten-free or dairy-free ingredient list, when we have one, is in the panels below.

• Dairy-free

  The dairy is the heavy cream and the parmesan. Use ½ cup / 120 ml unsweetened plain oat milk, or a plain dairy-free cooking cream, in place of the heavy cream, and skip the parmesan or use a dairy-free grated alternative you already cook with. Read those packages. Some add soy. The skillet will be less rich. This is a kitchen note, not a dairy-free certification.

• Gluten-free style

  Orzo is wheat pasta. Use 12 oz / 340 g of a rice-shaped pasta in a box that says gluten-free, and follow that box if the simmer time is different. Broth, spinach, lemon, cream, and parmesan do not call for wheat. Some broths use wheat or barley. Read the carton. This is a kitchen note, not a gluten-free certification.

• No spinach

  Use 5 oz / 142 g of chopped kale, stems removed, in place of the spinach, and give it an extra minute in the skillet. The bowl is no longer spinach.