Orzo is a rice shaped pasta.  This orzo salad is full of fun textures and the sweet cherry tomatoes give it a pop of color.  You could easily add grilled shrimp to this recipe for a light main course.  Perfect for summer entertaining.

Here are the ingredients.  When I boil my orzo I like to add a tablespoon of chicken flavored boullion to the water.  It flavors the orzo quite nicely.

Lightly toast your pine nuts.  These babies are very expensive, so watch them carefully.  They can burn in a blink of an eye.  Keep them moving around in the pan to avoid the burn.

In a small bowl mix together your olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pressed garlic, sugar, salt and pepper.  Sometimes I add a little bit of dried basil.  Give it a good whisk. 

You will have about half of the vinaigrette left over.  If you are making it ahead of time you will need to toss a little more vinaigrette into the salad right before you are ready to serve.  The pasta tends to absorb the dressing if it isn’t eaten right away.

Once the orzo has been boiled for about 10 minutes, drain and rinse with cold water to stop the orzo from cooking even more.  No one likes mushy orzo.

Chop your tomatoes and lightly season with salt and pepper.  Crumble your cheese and chiffonade your basil.  You can use as much or as little basil as you like. 

Toss everything into a medium sized bowl.

Toss with about half the vinaigrette.

Very good and very easy.