Avgolemono soup is a staple in every Greek household. Some of my fondest memories include watching my grandmother chop, stir, and sip on the steaming hot pot of avgolemono soup, or chicken soup, while hearing snippets of my favorite Christmas movies on the living room TV in the other room. But what makes this chicken soup so special? To be honest, I think it’s mostly my Yiayias’ care and passion for cooking (and the fact that you can never go wrong with a lemony chicken soup). So, here’s my family’s avgolemono soup recipe to keep the winter chill outside.Â
- Start by boiling your chicken. Now, like most of Yiayia’s recipes, I can’t give you measurements. But for my family of four, we usually boil a whole chicken and then shred/cut up the pieces once the chicken is fully boiled. Add as much chicken as you would like, depending on how many you are feeding.Â
- If you have used a whole chicken or even a chicken breast, you must now shred the chicken/cut it into smaller pieces so that you can add it to the soup. If you’re wondering where the seasoning is, I promise we will add some flavor to the broth!
- For the base of the soup, you will use chicken broth, add some basic seasonings like salt and pepper, and then add in some chopped vegetables like carrots, celery, and onions. Now, some people like to add some other veggies to their soup, but in my opinion, less is more when it comes to avgolemono.Â
- Once you have added all of the chicken and chopped veggies to your broth, go ahead and add some rice or orzo. Traditional avgolemono soup uses white rice, which pairs wonderfully with the rich lemoniness of the broth!
- For non-Greek speakers, avgolemono soup translates to egg lemon soup. That’s right, aside from Yiayia’s love for cooking, the secret ingredient is egg! In order to add your egg to the soup, crack and scramble an egg in a separate bowl. Then, mix in your desired amount of lemon juice. The key is adding the egg into the broth slowly, because we want the egg to seamlessly mix into the broth, not scramble. My grandmother does so by taking a small, half ladle full of broth and adding it to the bowl with the lemon and egg mixture will mixing that up, and once you have added more broth to the bowl little by little, pour this mixture into your pot and ta-da, you have just made some avgolemono soup.
Again, Yiayia measures with the heart, so I cannot share the measurements for her recipes. But you’ve got the basics of one of the best soups out there. All that’s left is to get cooking and enjoy!Â