Chickpea Orzo Pasta Salad

This chickpea orzo pasta salad with pesto dressing is a delicious meal or side that can also be meal prepped for lunches. The creamy pesto dressing is made with cashews and silken tofu and is one of my favourite dressings! The pasta salad is made up of orzo, chickpeas, cherry tomatoes and spinach. It comes together in under 20 minutes, enjoy!

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 12 minutes

Servings: 3

Ingredients

• 1 can of chickpeas (540mL)
• 2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
• 1 cup dry orzo (or gluten-free orzo)
• 3 cups chopped spinach

Pesto Dressing

• 1 generous handful of basil leaves
• 1/2 cup roasted unsalted cashews
• 100g silken tofu
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/2 lemon (about 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 6 tbsp water
• 3/4 tsp salt

Equipment

• Small pot
• Blender

Instructions

1. Boil water to cook orzo.
2. Drain and rinse the can of chickpeas.
3. Wash and cut cherry tomatoes into halves.
4. Wash, dry and roughly chop spinach.
5. Prepare pesto dressing by adding basil, cashews, silken tofu, garlic clove, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, water and salt to a blender and blending until smooth and creamy. If needed, add an extra 1-2 tbsp of water to loosen the dressing.
6. Once the orzo is cooked, drain then assemble the pasta salad and toss with dressing.
7. If meal prepping this salad to enjoy for lunches, add dressing to the bottom of the container, then chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, cooked orzo and spinach. Enjoy!

Notes

*For a nut-free version of the creamy pesto dressing, substitute sunflower seeds for cashews.

*Depending on the strength of your blender, you may need to soak cashews in boiling water before blending. I find the best blender for cashews is a bullet blender (you won’t need to do any soaking!).