Lemon Tahini Orzo Traybake.
Everyone loves a traybake, especially if you are short on time or want to batch prep a few meals for the week! Just throw it all in the tray and… well, bake! This Lemon Tahini Orzo Traybake is the perfect balance between simple and flavourful. Silky orzo pasta cooked alongside blistered cherry tomatoes, juicy aubergine, and protein-packed peas, then folded into a light and creamy tahini, lemon and miso sauce. For an extra protein hit, add in some chopped tempeh or firm tofu, giving you an impressive 39g protein per serve!
Serves: 5 | Total Cooking Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
2 aubergines, chopped into bite-sized chunks
325g cherry tomatoes
250g frozen peas
300g uncooked orzo
2 heaped tablespoons of brown or white miso paste
2 low salt vegetable stock cubes, dissolved in 400ml boiling water
400ml unsweetened oat milk
2 red chilli
60g tahini
Juice of 2 lemons
Optional: 500g tempeh or tofu, finely diced
Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC, fan.
Place all of the ingredients (except for the tahini and lemon) into a large oven dish in order they are listed above. TIP: mix the miso paste in with the vegetable stock first, before pouring it into the tray; this will help it mix better. If adding tofu or tempeh, you can either add this to the pan or cook on a separate tray for that extra crispy texture. I personally prefer to do the latter, but it depends on how good you are at multi-tasking ;).
Use two spoons to mix the ingredients around in the tray a little, then pop in the oven for roughly 35 - 40 minutes, mixing half way, to avoid the top layer getting burnt. If you are cooking your tofu and tempeh separately, then make sure you spread the pieces out evenly on a baking tray and place in the oven at the orzo’s half way mark.
The dish will be cooked when the orzo is soft to bite, so give it a little taste test (be careful of the heat!) before removing it from the oven.
Once cooked, drizzle over the tahini and lemon juice and mix everything together once more. Don’t worry if your dish still looks quite watery, this will soon thicken up once its been left to cool for 5 or so minutes.
Serve up the orzo on a plate and If you cooked your tofu/tempeh separate, sprinkle this over the top and enjoy!
This dish tastes fab cold too and can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days!
If you do make this recipe let me know by sharing a photo with me! I would love more than anything to see your creations.
