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🍋 🫒 Greek Cuisine

Avgolemono

Greece's silkiest soup — a lemony, velvety chicken broth thickened with egg yolks into something between a consommé and a cream soup, with rice or orzo and shredded chicken. The Greek answer to getting through anything.

⏱15 min prep 🔥35 min cook ⏰50 min total 🍽6 servings 📊Easy

The Cultural Story

Avgolemono means "egg-lemon" — an ancient Mediterranean technique of thickening sauces and soups by tempering eggs into hot liquid. This method appears across Greek, Turkish, Sephardic Jewish, and Levantine cooking, evidence of a shared culinary tradition that crosses borders drawn long after the recipe was invented. In Greece, avgolemono is the soup you make when someone is sick, stressed, or cold. It is also the sauce that goes on dolmades and lamb stew. The soup version is almost alarmingly simple: good stock, cooked rice, eggs, and lemon. The result tastes far more sophisticated than it has any right to be. Comfort in a bowl, which the Greeks have always understood.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1Bring the chicken broth to a boil in a large pot. Add rice or orzo. Cook until tender, about 15–18 minutes for rice, 8–10 minutes for orzo.
  2. 2If adding shredded chicken, stir it in now to heat through. Reduce heat to the lowest possible setting — the broth must be hot but not boiling for the next step.
  3. 3In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites until frothy (if separating eggs), then add the yolks and whisk together. Alternatively, whisk 3 whole eggs vigorously until foamy — about 2 minutes.
  4. 4Add the lemon juice to the egg mixture and whisk to combine. The mixture should look pale and frothy.
  5. 5Temper the eggs: slowly ladle about 2 cups of the hot broth into the egg-lemon mixture while whisking constantly. Go slowly — a sudden rush of hot liquid will scramble the eggs. Once you've added 2 cups, the egg mixture is warm enough to add back to the pot safely.
  6. 6Pour the tempered egg mixture back into the pot while stirring gently. Do not let the soup boil again after this point — a gentle simmer is the maximum, or the eggs will curdle. Stir for 2–3 minutes until the soup becomes visibly thicker and slightly velvety.
  7. 7Season with salt and white pepper. The soup should be bright, lemony, and silky. Serve immediately in warm bowls with fresh dill and extra lemon wedges. It does not reheat well — it's meant to be made and eaten.

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