---
title: 'An Underrated Weeknight Ingredient'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=016HJe2eyb4'
video_id: '016HJe2eyb4'
date: 2026-08-20
duration_sec: 606
channel: 'Adam Ragusea'
---

# An Underrated Weeknight Ingredient

> Source: [An Underrated Weeknight Ingredient](https://youtube.com/watch?v=016HJe2eyb4)

## Summary

This video demonstrates three quick, one-pan orzo stew recipes that are cheap, easy, and hearty, positioning orzo as a versatile alternative to rice or risotto. The host emphasizes the forgiving nature of orzo, which doesn't require precise cooking times, and shows how to improvise with pantry and fridge ingredients.

### Key Points

- **Orzo as a Versatile Starch** [00:00] — Orzo, a pasta shaped like barley, is presented as a quick, cheap, and easy base for one-pan meals, unlike rice or traditional pasta. It cooks in 5-10 minutes and is more forgiving than risotto.
- **Improvising with Fridge Ingredients** [00:30] — The first stew is made without shopping: using leftover pancetta, onion, sweet corn, and frozen peas. The host stresses using what you have and adjusting liquid ratios as needed.
- **Liquid Ratio and Cooking Technique** [01:15] — Use at least a 2:1 ratio of liquid to orzo by volume. Start with a baseline, but add more liquid for a stew-like texture. Boil until orzo is soft, stirring as needed to prevent sticking.
- **Orzo's Forgiving Nature** [02:47] — Unlike risotto, orzo doesn't have a narrow window of perfect doneness; it remains silky even if slightly overcooked, making it ideal for beginners or quick meals.
- **Chicken and Mushroom Stew** [04:12] — A second stew uses chicken thighs, mushrooms, garlic, shallots, and rosemary. Chicken thighs are praised for being bulletproof—overcooking only improves them. Deglaze with cognac or any brown liquor.
- **Enriching and Serving** [06:38] — Finish with grated pecorino, butter, or olive oil for richness. The chicken and mushroom version is declared the favorite, hearty and satisfying.
- **Shrimp and Bok Choy Stew** [07:08] — A third stew uses shrimp, baby bok choy, white wine, cream, and lemon zest. Add shrimp at the very end to avoid overcooking. Cream is added with starch to prevent curdling.
- **Final Tips and Versatility** [09:40] — Almost anything can be turned into a quick orzo stew: just use a 2:1 liquid-to-orzo ratio and let dinner happen spontaneously. The shrimp version is creamy, silky, and bright.

## Transcript

Ok so if you want a quick, cheap, one-pan,  EASY, super-hearty meal, the base starch that   you are looking for is not rice or pasta.  Well, technically it is pasta. It's orzo,  
which is a traditional little pasta shaped  to look like grains of barley — orzo means   barley in Italian, though I gather most  Italians call it risoni, or big rice. I think of orzo, I think of soups and salads,  but it's instant stew waiting to happen,  
like risotto, and much quicker and  easier than risotto. I'ma do three   quick stews, and for the first one I promised  myself I wouldn't select any ingredients. I'll   just open up the fridge and work with  whatever is there — ah, diced pancetta.
Any form of onion will do and here's an onion. We  can start with this. The pancetta is looking old,   so let's use it now or never. In a cold pan.  You turn the heat on, let it heat up slowly,   it'll melt more fat to cook the onion in. I  reckon I'll need half of this, chop it up however.
Pancetta looks good — I just want to see  it starting to go crispy before I add   all these wet vegetables and things.  Plenty of fat for cooking the onion,   so in it goes. Give it a five minute  head start to soften and brown a little.
I went looking in the pantry and found an  old can of sweet corn one of us bought at   some point. Sure. The kernels are  packed in water. Drain that out. Ok, onion looks good, time to drop in the orzo.  I'll do one cup of it, which is upwards of 200g  
depending on the size of the grains. Drop that  in there and stir it around. I don't know if   frying the grains a little improves the flavor the  way it does with risotto rice but it can't hurt. We'll need at least twice as much liquid  as orzo by volume and I already have 3/4  
of corn juice over here, might as well  use that, it's sweet and starchy. Then   I'll get enough water to give me two  cups total liquid, 2:1 by volume. Now we just boil. Orzo will take  5 to 10 minutes to get soft,  
depending on the brand. When I see  them getting plump I'll drop in my   corn. This is a lot of corn, this will  be a very vegetal stew and that is good. Let me taste this a little. That corn was  NOT very salty, which means I can drop in  
a stock cube I've got in the cupboard,  maybe half of this — very salty. Can   already tell I'm gonna need more liquid for  a stew-like texture — 2:1 is only a baseline. The orzo is soft, so I'll drop in some frozen peas  at the very end to keep them green. Let's balance  
all that sweet with some heat from these pepper  flakes, and some black pepper too. Taste for salt,   and if it's good, you can finish with some  butter or something just to make it extra creamy. Look at that — an impromptu assemblage of  pantry ingredients yields a filling and  
nutritious meal in literally less than 15  minutes. What do we have, at least two big   portions? The texture is much more silky than  risotto without having to nail the cook time,   like you do with rice. This little pasta  is very forgiving, even if you overcook it.
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Anyway let's do another orzo stew. These ones I  did shop for a little. I've got a couple chicken   thighs here, I'm just snipping them into the  olive oil with scissors because I don't really   care how the chunks are shaped and this way I  don't have to scrub chicken off a cutting board.
and brown the first sides. WAIT until they're  ready to release. Are they ready? Yeah,   good enough. Scrape those off and  stir fry them the rest of the way.
While I'm waiting, I'll slice up some mushrooms.  Throw those in when the chicken looks almost   done. They'll probably need some more oil to  cook — porous little guys. Stir stir stir,   try to work the mushrooms to the bottom  of the pan in an even layer to brown.
Peel a couple cloves of garlic.  I've got a shallot here too.   then I'll just roughly chop those two together.  We're not being fancy today, we're being quick.
In with the garlic and shallots, stir and  they'll just need a minute to soften. In   goes a cup of this other brand of orzo,  this one was my favorite, #notanad. Stir, then because I'm cooking on an  open flame, I will kill the gas while  
I deglaze with a little cognac, don't  want it to ignite. Basically any brown   liquor is great with mushrooms. Heat  back on now that the bottle is away. I'll get some good cartoned chicken broth,  this looks to be a two cup package so I'll  
put all that in. Again, you need at LEAST  2:1 liquid by volume. Bring that to a boil.   I'll run outside and pick some rosemary,  chop that up. Mushrooms and rosemary are a   combination forged on Mount Olympus, I swear.
we're waiting, and you don't need to stir  at all for the first half of the boiling,   but for the second half you may need to  stir constantly, to keep it from sticking   to the bottom, just like with risotto. In fact,  I think that's where the whole idea of stirring  
risotto constantly probably came from, even though  stirring does not improve the texture, according   to my experiments. It just keeps stuff from  sticking to the bottom as the stew gets thicker. Taste — gonna need more water to get this soft  enough, and not 10 minutes later the grains are  
soft enough, kill the heat. Again, it's not  like risotto where the grains are perfect for   one flashing moment and then they're overcooked.  Orzo is much more forgiving, as is chicken thigh,   which is why I used it here. You can overcook  the thigh and it just gets better. Bullet proof.
Rosemary in, and I'll enrich this one  with some grated pecorino. I could add   some butter too but I've got plenty of olive  oil in there already, plus the chicken fat. THAT is my favorite one of these that  I made. SO hearty. Maybe not quite two  
portions this time — you could bulk  it out with frozen peas at the end,   or do more chicken. Hey, who’s stealing  my dinner? You don't even like mushrooms! maybe just stir in a little extra water when  you microwave it, to compensate for absorption.
this time. Everything straight into  the pan. A little butter. I've got   a fresh red chili I can just snip  in there. I love kitchen scissors. of green onions. I will snip  off the roots over the trash,  
and then come back over here and snip in  the whites. The greens I'll save for later. Stir stir stir, just needs a second. Get a  cup of orzo and this is a finer-grained brand,   frying the dry grains a little does help them to  not stick to each other once the liquid goes in.
Gonna cheat and grab one of these frozen  balls of pre-minced garlic — love these,   vastly superior to jarlic because the  volatile compounds are stable in the freezer. Gonna deglaze with a little  white wine, like a risotto,  
and then a couple cups of water. If I had  shellfish broth that would be perfect. Here's a whole head of baby bok choy. Cut  off the root end to release the leaves,   and I just washed this, but uh oh — lots of dirt  between the layers. I'll just rinse these under  
the sink ... and drop them in, easy. Take out  more of that root end and these layers are dirty   inside too, I'll run them under the sink, and in  they go. Then there's just the little immature   flower at the center, that's my favorite part.  Like broccoli, because they're both brassicas.
Stir to get those cooking. Grind in some  pepper while I'm here. Pinch of salt to   start with. And we'll need to stir  these pretty frequently as we boil,   just to make sure the thick ends are  getting down where they can cook and soften.
And when the orzo is just a couple minutes from  being soft, almost within striking distance,   I'll drop in half a pound of pre-peeled raw shrimp  from the fish counter. Feeling lazy today. Though,   I put these in too soon. I thought this  tiny orzo would cook faster than it did.
so drop them in when the thing is just about done. because I have some open cream in the  fridge. Don't need much to make this creamy.
This orzo is dragging, I need more liquid,  so I guess I'll get more wine. I do like to   and there's plenty of starch in the pan  to keep the acid from curdling the cream.
When we're done I'll snip in some of  these onion greens at the last second,   and because I have one, I'll zest in a lemon.  Lemon zest with creamy seafood is amazing,   and you can still juice the lemon later,  it just doesn't last quite as long now.
Yeah, we've got at least two big  portions from this one for sure,   nice. So creamy, so silky, so bright  and vegetal. Almost anything can be a   quick orzo stew. Look around the house  — a shoe, a cat — throw it in the pan,  
liquid and orzo at about a 2:1 ratio, and  dinner will happen almost spontaneously.