This quick and easy parmesan spinach orzo has a light, creamy sauce and plenty of fresh spinach. Perfect with veggies, salad, chicken, fish, or sausage!
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If we pitted our favorite side dishes against each other March Madness-style, I’d put serious money on this creamy parmesan orzo.
It’s quick! Simple! Versatile! Easy to customize!
(Also, there’s cheese. You know how we do.)
This spinach orzo pasta recipe is almost like an orzo alfredo: there’s plenty of garlic and parmesan in a light, creamy sauce.
For having so few ingredients, this alfredo orzo also packs an impressive amount of flavor – just make sure you’re using quality parmesan cheese for best results!
How to riff on this spinach orzo:
This creamy orzo is an amazing blank-canvas recipe – it’s easy to tweak, so use whatever you have! Some of our favorite additions and substitutions:
- Cheese: Add feta, goat cheese, white cheddar, fontina, havarti, or brie in place of (or in addition to!) the parmesan.
- Greens: We love making this orzo with spinach, but you can swap the greens here! Use kale or arugula in place of spinach if you like. Fresh or frozen spinach is fine!
- Veggies: Make this orzo pasta even heartier by adding peas, corn, steamed or roasted broccoli, roasted brussels sprouts or parsnips, or bell peppers.
- Protein: Stir in cooked chopped or shredded chicken, Italian sausage, or top with sautéed shrimp for extra protein. This is also good with butter beans or cannellini beans mixed in!
- If you don’t have orzo on hand, use any kind of pasta you like! For larger pastas (like rigatoni or cavatappi) you may want to use extra milk or cream to stretch the sauce a bit farther.
What to serve with this creamy orzo:
This easy, creamy orzo recipe goes with just about everything! Some of our favorite recipes to serve with it:
- Easy Lemon Garlic Butter Salmon or Steelhead
- Quick Arugula Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette
- Lemon Parmesan Roasted Broccoli
- Easy Crusty Artisan Bread
VIDEO: HOW TO MAKE PARMESAN SPINACH ORZO
Parmesan Spinach Orzo
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: Serves 4–6 1x
- Category: Side Dish
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
An easy, creamy parmesan spinach orzo recipe.
Ingredients
- 2 cups uncooked orzo pasta
- 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 green onions, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 Tablespoons flour
- 1 3/4 cup milk
- 2 cups fresh spinach, roughly chopped
- 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Cook orzo in very salty water until al dente. Drain and set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a medium-sized pot over medium heat.
- Add green onion and garlic to oil. Sauté, stirring once or twice, for about a minute until onions have softened and garlic is fragrant.
- Add salt and pepper. Stir to combine.
- Add flour to pot and stir to combine. Let cook for 30 seconds or so to cook out any raw flour taste.
- Add milk to the pot a little at a time, whisking constantly to work out any lumps. Cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce has thickened and reached a low simmer, about 5-8 minutes.
- Add chopped spinach to sauce and stir to combine.
- Add parmesan cheese. Stir until cheese has melted and you have a smooth sauce.
- Return cooked orzo to sauce and toss to coat. Turn off the heat and serve immediately.
Notes
Additions and Substitutions. Use feta, goat cheese, white cheddar, fontina, brie, or havarti in place of (or in addition to!) the parmesan here. Swap kale or arugula for the spinach if you prefer, or use frozen spinach. Add chicken, shrimp, sausage, sautéed mushrooms, broccoli, or any other veggies you have on hand to this orzo to make it a little heartier. (For more swaps and substitutions, be sure to read the post above!)
If the sauce is too thin, let it cook for a few extra minutes. Too thick? Add a splash of milk to thin it out.
Use shallots, yellow onions, or white onions in place of the green onions if you like.
No orzo? Use any pasta you like! If you’re using a larger pasta like rigatoni or cavatappi, you may want to use extra milk or add a dash of cream to stretch the sauce a bit more.
Strict vegetarians should look for parmesan cheese made without rennet.
This recipe was updated in April 2020.
Keywords: alfredo, cream sauce, pasta
This recipe is amazing…..l added some leftover roast chicken & my family loved it.
Glad to hear it! Thanks for letting me know 🙂
I liked this a lot! I added a few grates of fresh nutmeg. You don’t really know it’s there, but it brings out the flavor of the bechamel sauce.
I just made this, but didn’t have cows milk on hand so I used almond milk. Still turned out pretty good! Probably not as good, but worked in a pinch!
i just made this for dinner and it came out great. This is joining our dinner meal rotation.
made this for dinner,we loved it,it was super simple
This was very good, my family loved it! I will only use 2 cups of orzo next time, not enough sauce for the amount of cooked orzo. Thanks for the recipe Jessie!
This looks amazing and so comforting. I’m a huge fan of orzo!
Made this for my family tonight!
They went back for seconds.
And then thirds!
Definitely adding it to my recipe collection! thank you!
So happy to hear that you liked it! Thanks for letting me know 🙂
Hi Jessie, I made this as a side dish for the family on Sunday. I stirred in about 1/4 cup (or maybe a bit more 😉 chopped fresh dill just before serving. Delicious! Thank you so much for sharing your recipes!
I’m glad you liked it! I LOVE the idea of adding dill. I’ll have to try that next time!
Is it really two teaspoons of flour? Not two tablespoons? I did two teaspoons as it says but my sauce never thickened (until I put the Parmesan cheese in anyway). Otherwise it turned out great, very tasty! Thanks!
I do use two teaspoons (not tablespoons). When my sauces don’t thicken, it’s usually because I don’t give the roux enough time to cook, or because there is too much liquid in the pan (moisture from the vegetables, too much milk, etc). A thin sauce could also be the result of a too-small or too-tall pan: if there is too much sauce and not enough surface area, it will take longer to heat through/thicken. The only other thing I can think of is that some lumps of roux might not have gotten worked out (it’s so important to break up all the clumps to thicken the sauce – that’s why I add liquid a little bit at a time) but it doesn’t sound like that’s what happened here. If the sauce is too thin, I always recommend letting it simmer for awhile longer to get rid of some of that excess liquid. I’m glad it tasted good, though! Hopefully these sauce ideas will help you get a thicker sauce next time around 🙂
I don’t have green onions, will it make a huge difference if I leave it out? Can I use 1/2 of a white onion??
No green onions = not a problem. If you use regular white onion, I’d use a bit less so that you don’t end up with a lot more “onion” flavor – I like the green onions because they are so mild and really let the parmesan shine through. But all onions are good onions in my book!
This sounds great! I’m wondering if frozen chopped spinach wound be ok with this?
Definitely! The spinach will cook down in the sauce, so you won’t lose any texture by using frozen.