What is a good substitute for orzo?

I ended up using elbow macaroni and it worked fine! I do love orzo and would've preferred the texture of it but it was out of stock at two stores 😡

Substituting with another small pasta would be closest to the recipe author's original vision. Some of these include acini di pepe, stelline (small stars), ditalini, really small shells, anelli (rings). It's said that there's a pasta shape for every day of the year (365) but the obscure ones you won't find on the shelf at a typical supermarket. Heck, even small alphabet letter pasta would work.

One great pasta to consider would be toasted fregola. These are BB-sized granules and some are toasted for a richer flavor that would probably be closer to a pizza crust than plain orzo. That said, orzo is the easiest small pasta to find in American supermarkets.

Another possibility that you might consider is using bulgur in place of pasta. You'd need to experiment with liquid amounts and cooking duration.

Best of luck.

Any small pasta, even small elbow macaroni, will work. In a pinch you could probably even break up spaghetti. If you don't want to use pasta at all, you could cut Italian bread into cubes and make it a sort of bread pudding or strata.