Avgolemono Soup
This classic Greek avgolemono soup combines nourishing chicken and rice with a velvety egg and lemon sauce to make a uniquely comforting, tangy chicken soup.
Ingredients
- 1 cup short-grain rice
- 6 cups chicken broth 5 to cook with, 1 for the avogolemono sauce
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 chicken breasts
- 2 carrots
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup lemon
Instructions
Pre-Soak the Rice
- Rinse the rice until the water runs clear and then place it in a bowl covered with water.
- Soak for around 20 to 30 minutes until you can break a grain easily by pressing on it.While it soaks, let’s cook the chicken…
Cook the Chicken
- Pour 5 cups of chicken broth into a big pot, add a bay leaf, carrots, and the chicken breasts.
- Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to simmer and cook for about 15 to 20 minutes.
- Remove the chicken, set on a plate to cool.
Cook the Rice
- Drain the rice and add it to the simmering chicken broth. It should take about 10 to 15 minutes to cook.
- While the rice cooks, we’re going to do two things:1. Shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces2. Make avgolemono sauce
Make Avgolemono Sauce
- Heat up the cup of chicken broth you put aside in the microwave or stovetop. We don’t want it boiling, scalding hot – but it should be hotter than, say, bath water. A good temperature is between 70°C to 80°C (160°F to 175°F).
- Whisk together the eggs in a big bowl.
- Add in the lemon juice and continue whisking.
- Slowly pour in the cup of hot chicken broth, a little at a time. Whisk continuously.
- Pour the avgolemono mixture into the rice soup pot and turn the heat off. Give it all a good stir.
Assemble and Serve
- Either add the shredded chicken pieces into the soup and give it a good stir OR leave the chicken on the plate so everyone can add what they want.
- Add salt to taste, freshly ground black pepper, a few extra squeezes of lemon if you want. Herbs like parsley, dill, chives, and even cilantro are delicious garnishes to brighten things up.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Pre-soak the rice. Soaking the rice before cooking helps the rice cook faster and more evenly. You’ll know the rice is well-soaked when you can break a grain easily – this should take around 20 to 30 minutes.
Room temperature eggs are ideal. When the hot broth hits the eggs, cold eggs are more likely to curdle from the difference in temperature. We don't want that. Whipping them will warm them up but it’s even better if you give the eggs a chance to get to room temperature beforehand.
Do the broth separately. Because rice soaks up so much liquid and it’s a bit of a bother to try to ladle pure broth from the pot – it's easier to set some chicken broth aside from the get go.
So not all of the chicken broth will be used for cooking. This recipe calls for 6 cups of chicken broth but we’ll only be using 5 cups to cook the chicken and the rice with. The other cup is set aside for the avgolemono sauce.
Hot broth, slowly added. The key to a perfect avgolemono soup lies in tempering the eggs. That means very gently cooking the proteins in the eggs while simultaneously preventing them from cooking completely and forming clumps.
To do this, you want to slowly add hot broth, little by little to the egg-lemon mixture, while whisking continuously and vigorously to get that lovely velvety smoothness. The goal is to gently cook the eggs and slowly but surely get them to the same temperature as the soup.