Shrimp and Orzo Bake
Incorporating seafood is a great way to keep meals lower in calories and fat, but still pleasantly satisfying. This lighter pasta dish is easy to put together and makes the most of simple seasonings and bright flavors. Sprinkled with a handful of feta cheese and a bit of chive, this dish is a memorable and healthy meal.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Orzo
- 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
- 1 ¼ cups dice Onion
- 4 teaspoons mince Garlic, Cloves
- 1 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
- ½ cups White Cooking Wine
- 2 cups dice Tomato
- 1 teaspoon Oregano, Dried
- 1 tablespoon Chives, Dried
- 4 ounces Feta Cheese Crumbles, Fat Free
- 2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
- ⅛ teaspoons Salt
- ⅛ teaspoons Black Pepper
- ¾ pounds Shrimp, Fresh
Containers
Cooking Instructions
Freeze For Later Cooking Day Directions
These directions help you cook or prepare this meal PRIOR to being frozen for serving later (see Serving Day Directions when you are ready to prepare it to eat).
Why would I want to freeze this?
- Cook the orzo according to the directions on the package, until al dente. Drain.
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Make From Frozen Serving Day Directions
These directions help you cook or reheat this meal AFTER it's been frozen for when you are ready to eat it.
- Thaw: In fridge
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Make It Now Cooking Directions
These directions are for cooking this recipe to serve immediately and NOT to freeze for later.
- Cook the orzo according to the directions on the package, until al dente. Drain.
- Heat olive oil in a large pan.
- Cook onion for 5 minutes.
- Add garlic and red pepper flakes, cook 30 seconds.
- Add wine, tomatoes and oregano.
- Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer, cooking for five minutes.
- Add the chives, feta, and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Combine shrimp, cooked orzo and tomato mixture.
- Divide among baking dishes.
- Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes until shrimp are thoroughly cooked.
Nutrition Facts
- Servings Per Recipe
- 4 Servings
- Serving Size
- about 1 cup Amount Per Serving
- Calories
- 336
- Total Fat
- 5g
- Saturated Fat
- 1g
- Trans Fat
- 0g
- Cholesterol
- 112mg
- Sodium
- 1159mg
- Total Carbohydrates
- 42g
- Fiber
- 2g
- Sugar
- 5g
- Protein
- 25g
- WW Freestyle
- 7
27 Comments
Join the discussionThis recipe omits when to put the lemon juice and feta in. Is it to be sprinkled on at the end or baked in?
The lemon juice and feta are sprinkled over top once the mixture is in the baking dishes before baking. The post has been updated to correct the error.
Made it for dinner tonight and it was awesome!!!!
This is Abbi’s recipe but yes I LOVED it too. I am not a huge shrimp fan even. 🙂
This sounds awesome! I love using whole wheat orzo in recipes, I am going to try this one out!
I tried this recipe tonight and the family loved it, but it fails to mention when to put the dried chives in.. other than that it was amazing!
The omission has been corrected. The chives should be added with the tomatoes and oregano.
Thanks!! It was delish!
What size shrimp works best in this recipe?
I use the extra large 16-20 count per pound.
thanks!
Just confirming that you mix the UNCOOKED shrimp in with the COOKED orzo before baking. Correct?
Sorry, so learner. 🙂
oops, slow learner.
Made this tonight and loved it! The lemon and feta totally made it. 🙂
Oh this is one of my all-time favorites! I made a double batch today myself and froze for my lunches.
I made this today and actually did a cold salad version of it. Used all the same ingredients but didnt cook the tomatoes. I also added basil-delish!
What type of onion? Red, Yellow and White are all vastly different in flavor – and I don’t want to mess it up! 🙂
Yellow onion works great, but you can use any for this one.
My freezer meal group made this. 5 of us. The flavors were amazing after it was initially cooked, however, once it was frozen, thawed, and re-baked… 4 of us suffered from extremely watery dishes with very mushy pasta. The last woman who made it had heeded the advice of the rest of us and drained off all excess liquid after completely thawing, and that seemed to help a bit. We’re planning to make this again, but will be freezing the sauce separately from the shrimp, cooking the pasta on serving day, and basically turning it into a skillet dish. It was amazing for us on prep day (we all thought it smelled so amazing that we tried it), but the frozen and re-baked version just didn’t do it for our group. Not sure if we did something wrong (pasta was definitely al dente, and we cooled completely in fridge before freezing). Just wanted to provide our experience.
Hi Michelle, Thank you so much for reaching out with your feedback. We will definitely pass this onto our Menu Builder team to review this recipe. This is great feedback, and we always love to hear feedback on recipes. We do test our recipes with test cooks before we publish them, but we do review when we receive feedback and make adjustments when needed. Have a great weekend! ~OAMM
Thank you for this recipe. I’ve been scouring the internet for light, freezable pasta bakes and I also love seafood. This is the holy grail of what I was looking for.
The recipe says to use fresh shrimp. Can I use frozen so I am not refreezing the shrimp? Thanks!
Hi Jolene! You shouldn’t see a reduction in quality if you thaw the shrimp prior to cooking with it to freeze for later. We hope this helps!
My mother-in-law is in her 90’s and lives alone and she’s 1000 miles away. We go to visit a few times a year. And I fill her freezer with individual meals. I don’t know when we will get there. I’m making 4 recipes and I searched for freezer friendly meals. I’m dividing it into individual meals. I’m also sending reheating instructions. I read that after it’s thawed, bake 15- 20 minutes. What temperature do you suggest? 350?
If it is already cooked and she is just reheating then yes, 350 would be fine. How nice of you!
Can anyone tell me if when you are making to freeze should the shrimp remain raw in the orzo mixture? Or do you cook the shrimp in the orzo then freeze it?
Hi Dean,
If you are making it to freeze, then you would freeze it without cooking the shrimp first. Then they would cook on the serving day.