Can I Use A Different Pasta To Orzo For Chicken In A Pot?

Our answer

Nigella's Chicken In A Pot With Lemon And Orzo (from COOK, EAT, REPEAT) is a one-pot dish with poached chicken, vegetables and pasta. The recipe uses rice-shaped orzo pasta as this is easy and comforting to eat with a spoon and doesn't become too mushy when cooked for a long time.

Stellette pasta and other small pasta shapes for soup, such as farfalline, tend to have a shorter cooking time than orzo (approximately 6 minutes for stellette and 11 minutes for orzo), which means that if stellette is used as a substitute then the pasta could become very soft. You could try reducing the cooking time of the pasta slightly with stellette and cook the chicken in the broth for 1 hour and 25 minutes, then add the pasta and cook for 20 minutes. But as we have not tried this, we are unable to guarantee the results. You can also substitute rice for the orzo and the instructions can be found here in the ASK Nigella.com Answers: Chicken In A Pot With Rice.