My fiancé Ali introduced me early to her absolute favorite soup: The Avgolemono—a soup which utilizes eggs (avgo) and lemons (lemono) as its main characteristics. Even though we have plenty of Greek restaurants and a big Greek population in my home area, I never stumbled upon this soup before. While adding some egg into a soup was nothing new to me, adding lemon, on the other hand, sounded a bit foreign.

Our take on Avgolemono!

Ali’s take on the soup is more vegetable-heavy than most traditional recipes. Many versions don’t have any vegetables in the finished product at all. Ours is different: we add a good amount of cubed carrots and celery. Another important difference to most recipes is the seasoning: we do not season the soup with any salt or pepper before serving. The salt is added fresh onto the soup when served, just before adding a spoonful of cold sour cream. The combination of the not-yet-diluted salt, cold sour cream, and hot, sour soup creates a whole different taste experience on your tongue. But even without salt and sour cream, the combination of lemon, egg, and dill already creates a fantastic taste!

Technical Section: Tempering & Troubleshooting

Before we head to the recipe, two little technical hints:

• The Tempering: This is arguably the most vital step in this entire recipe. Once you have frothed the eggs and added the lemon juice, you must gradually raise the temperature of the mixture without having “cooked eggs” with solid pieces (curdling). This is done by slowly drizzling hot broth into the egg mixture while whisking constantly. If you’re nervous about the eggs curdling, start with very small increments—like a half-ladle—until the bowl feels warm to the touch.
• The “Orzo Sponge”: The next day, your Avgolemono will have a more stew-like texture because the orzo soaks up all the liquid. Our trick is just to add some water or broth if you’re worried about watering it down too much. Or simply enjoy it in this new stew-like form!

Print Recipe

Veggie heavy Avgolemono Soup (Greek lemon soup with lots of vegetables)

A simple avgolemono soup recipe which has more veggies than the traditional ones

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Course: Main Course, Soup

Cuisine: Greek

Keyword: avgolemono, chicken, soup

Servings: 8 servings

Calories: 365kcal

Ingredients

For the stock:

• 1 Whole chicken or bone-in pieces
• 1-2 Carrots
• 1-2 stalks Celery
• 2 Onions halved
• Peppercorns and a bay leaf

For the Soup:

• 10 cups Fresh chicken stock strained from above
• Chicken all the meats
• 2 cups Carrots cubed
• 2 cups Celery cubed
• 1 cup Onions chopped
• ½ cups Orzo
• 3-4 Large eggs
• 3 Lemons juiced
• Fresh Dill preferably

Serving

• Salt, Pepper and Sour Cream Added at the table

Instructions

• Preparing The Stock: Simmer chicken and stock veggies in water for 60-90 mins. Shred meat, strain broth, and discard boiled veggies. In the meantime, you can cube your fresh veggies, squeeze the lemons, and chop the dill.
  
• The Veggies & Noodle: Sautee the onions and add the other vegetables. Add 10 cups of stock and boil the fresh cubed carrots and celery in the. Add Orzo and cook until tender.
  
• The Avgolemono: Whisk the eggs until frothy, then add the lemon juice.
  
• Tempering: Slowly whisk 2-3 ladles of hot broth into the egg mixture.
  
• The Merge: Stir the tempered mixture back into the pot over low heat. Do not boil.
  
• The Finish: Fold in the shredded chicken and dill. Serve with a tablespoon of sour cream and season individually with salt and pepper at the table.
  

Notes

This recipe uses more vegetables than most more traditional ones. We do not season with salt and pepper during the cooking, which gives you the opportunity to have a low sodium meal. 

For the stock this is just a base recipe. Basically you can do whatever you like. E.g. add more or different vegetables. Back in Germany I always liked to add leeks and parsley root. If you can get get celery root, that will also intensify the vegetable flavor of the broth.

More nutritional information:

• Protein: 32g (mostly from the 2 lbs of chicken and eggs)
• Carbohydrates: 22g (from the orzo and vegetables)
• Fat: 16g (depending on how lean the chicken/stock is)

Thank you for checking out this recipe! Leave a comment below if you tried it!

Also checkout my Snack Snail recipe as well as our Spinach Artichoke Dip.