Baked Orzo with Spinach, Feta & Lemon

Ingredients

• 350 g orzo pasta
• 200 g baby spinach
• 200 g feta cheese, crumbled
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 700 ml hot vegetable stock
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp chilli flakes
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 30 g pine nuts, toasted
• 15g basil, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C. While it comes up, toast the pine nuts in a dry pan over medium heat for 2–3 minutes, shaking often, until pale gold and fragrant — they tip from gold to burnt in seconds, so pull them the moment you smell them and tip onto a plate.
2. In a large, deep baking dish, combine the orzo, chopped tomatoes, hot stock, sliced garlic, oregano, chilli flakes, lemon zest and 2 tbsp olive oil. Season generously with salt and black pepper — this is your one chance to season the orzo from the inside, so think of the liquid the way you'd think of pasta water: it should taste properly seasoned, almost like the sea. The stock and tomatoes do the work of breaking each other down in the oven, so don't skimp on liquid.
3. Stir everything into an even layer, making sure the orzo is submerged and the garlic slices are tucked under the surface — sliced garlic exposed on top of a 200°C bake will scorch and turn bitter, and burnt garlic taints the whole dish. Cover tightly with foil.
4. Bake for 20 minutes. The orzo should have drunk up most of the liquid and be almost tender, with the tomatoes collapsed into a loose, glossy sauce around it.
5. Pull it out, lift the foil, and give it a proper stir to loosen any orzo stuck to the base — those caught bits are flavour, you want them folded through, not welded on. Fold the baby spinach through in handfuls; it will collapse into the residual heat in under a minute. Taste the orzo now and adjust the salt — the spinach has just diluted everything, so it almost always needs another pinch.
6. Crumble two-thirds of the feta over the top in rough chunks. Return to the oven, uncovered, for 10–12 minutes until the feta is softened, patched with gold at the edges, and the orzo is fully cooked through with no chalky bite.
7. To serve: squeeze the lemon juice across the whole dish — the acid cuts the salty feta and lifts the tomato — then scatter over the remaining feta, the toasted pine nuts and the torn basil leaves. Drizzle with the last tablespoon of olive oil and bring it straight to the table in the dish.