Played around with this recipe a little as I didn't have the mascarpone cheese, enough onions or spinach. I liked the results though as did the family. The overall flavor was good and different enough from our usual orzo side dish.

This dish came out pretty good! I did make some alterations to suit my family's taste. I subbed parmesan cheese for the blue cheese. I caramelized shallots instead of the onion- shallot is more subtle in flavor than onions. I also added 2 tsp of minced garlic to the shallots during the last few minutes of cook time. I also added the spinach to the pan to wilt it down.

I had such high hopes for what sounded like such a delicious dish! I should've read all the reviews. Mascarpone did not work, cream cheese would have been better, four onions was NOT too much so keep them all in, 1 pound of pasta was way too much and too bland, the spinach needs to be added while it's still cooking to wilt it some. If I make it again, I'll make drastic changes. I agree it was missing "something" but not sure what. Toasted walnuts might have been a good addition too, but not sure what else would help this...

I 1/2'd the pasta and doubled the spinach. Used prewashed baby spinach and rotini shaped pasta. Also sub'd cream cheese for mascarpone. Had only 4 oz. of the blue cheese. VERY GOOD. It cools very quickly. Had to nuke individual servings. Fine for wife and I. Would be very difficult to serve warm to many more.

Great side dish-takes a little bit of work, but it was worth it. My husband especially loved this.

Excellent recipe. Used regular cream cheese and skipped the spinach. Will definitely make again.

I've made this several times now & we love it. I'm allergic to blue cheese so substitute feta instead. Used both mascarpone & cream cheese and to me both versions taste the same so if you want to save a couple of bucks, feel free to use cream cheese. It's all good!

This is wonderful. I did change the blue cheese to feta since I do not like blue cheese- but the feta works as a nice compliment.

I made this for our Christmas dinner and it was very good. I added extra blue cheese and freshly cracked black pepper. It was indulgent, but delicious!

I made this for dinner last night as a side dish and it was very good. I added some slivered sundried tomatoes (packed in oil) and some toasted walnuts. This would be a great salad served at room temperature in the summertime.

My boyfriend rated this a 4, although I rated it a 5, so 4.5 it is. I took a LONG time caramelizing my onions... probably over an hour over low-md heat. I like them to be uniformly brown and soft. I only used 4 ounces of bleu cheese, and I used cream cheese instead of mascarpone because my grocer was out. I used tiny shell pasta instead of the orzo and I thought it was a grown up version of shells and cheese! The bleu cheese didn't overpower at all. The sharp bleu cheese and the sweet onions were a perfect compliment. I loved it, and I will make it again, for sure.

I substituted grated fresh parmesan for blue cheese because like a previous reviewer said, the blue cheese overwhelmed the dish. I also added a lot more spinach. This dish has a very mild taste and could use garlic maybe, or some bacon. I think this would be a hit with kids who like the more simple dishes.

Timing is essential in this recipe if you want to avoid a lukewarm final product since the only 'cooking' that the cheese and spinach get is from the orzo and the onions. To help warm it up a bit more, I recommend bringing your cheeses to room temp first and then adding some reserved pasta cooking water to the mixture to warm it up, as is done with many pasta recipes. I also agree about not skimping on the onions; they are absolutely necessary for balancing the blue cheese. My husband thought it needed more balancing, so increasing the onions might be a good idea. Finally, caramelizing the onions takes much longer than stated.

A very good recipe. I did not drain the onions which kept the orzo from getting too dry. The onions need to be medium to large sized because it takes a lot of onion to balance the blue cheese flavor. This is a new favorite, though reserved for special occasions which justify all of the chopping and tears.

This is a good recipe and I have made ir a few times now. Since there are few ingredients, I beleive the key to this recipe is to use good ingredients: vidalia or spanish onions onions and a good blue cheese.

Excellent! my family LOVES blue cheese and this recipe was just perfect!

I give this one star because: the blue cheese COMPLETELY overwhelmed all the other ingredients; it was VERY dry, AND to add insult to injury, slicing and carmelizing all those onions was a real pain in the butt!

This is a great dish, something different. Next time I would cut the Blue cheese in half and add some toasted pine nuts.

This is very tasty, a nice change from rice or potatoes. I must admit ... I was very nervious about the amount of onions. But it honestly worked. I wish I had added even more (smile) Just a note, I think this might have the potential to become dry, so I used a bit of the water that I cooked the orzo in before it became dry. Last note, like another person mentioned, I added the spinach to the hot orzo, so that the spinach would wilt a bit.