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Harissa Chicken & Orzo Salad

A Saturday Kitchen recipe with the chickpeas kept and chicken added. You crush the raw tomatoes with your hands and let the salt pull their juice out into a sauce — that's the whole dish, and it's better than it sounds.

serves 2 30 mins dinner lunch spicy
Harissa Chicken & Orzo Salad

why it works

Crushing raw tomatoes releases a wave of lycopene and potassium, and pairing that with olives and olive oil is about as textbook cardioprotective as a bowl of food gets. The heavy hit of red wine vinegar isn't just for flavour either — acid measurably lowers the glycemic index of pasta, so the orzo behaves itself.

Ingredients

  • 2 large chicken breasts, diced
  • 1 tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained
  • 180g orzo pasta
  • 300g ripe tomatoes (vine or cherry), halved
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely grated
  • 1.5 tbsp harissa paste
  • 2.5 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 2 massive handfuls wild rocket
  • small handful pitted black olives
  • a bunch of fresh basil
  • 60g light feta
  • salt

Method

  1. Do the tomatoes first. Halve them into a large mixing bowl with the grated garlic and half a teaspoon of salt, then get your hands in and properly squash them until they burst. Leave them sitting for 10 minutes while you do everything else — the salt pulls the juices out and you end up with a fresh, vivid sauce base rather than chopped tomatoes.

  2. Cook the orzo in salted boiling water for 8–9 minutes, then drain and rinse under cold water to stop it cooking and cool it down.

  3. Toss the diced chicken with half a tablespoon of the harissa. Hot pan, light spray of oil, sear for 5–6 minutes until cooked through with charred edges. Dice small and get the pan properly hot — you want a crust, not a poach.

  4. Whisk the remaining tablespoon of harissa with the red wine vinegar, olive oil and honey in a mug.

  5. Into the bowl of crushed tomatoes go the cooled orzo, the chickpeas, the warm chicken and its pan juices, the olives, torn basil and the rocket. Pour the dressing over and toss it hard. The rocket wilts slightly against the warm chicken and everything drinks up the vinegary tomato juice.

  6. Divide between two big bowls and crumble 30g of feta over each.

remix

  • Add a heavy teaspoon of ras el hanout to the chicken alongside the harissa, plus a pinch of smoked paprika for a barbecue edge
  • Drop the chickpeas and take the orzo down to 150g for a lighter version
  • Baby spinach instead of rocket if you want it to disappear into the pasta rather than sit up in it
  • Charred tenderstem broccoli on the side instead of folding greens through
  • Skip the feta and it becomes properly dairy-free without losing much