Avgolemono (Greek egg-lemon chicken soup)

Name: Avgolemono (Greek egg-lemon chicken soup)
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h 45 min
Total time: 2 h 15 min
Cuisine: Greek
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken (about 1.5 kg); 2.5 l cold water; 1 onion, peeled and halved; 1 carrot, halved; 1 celery stick, halved; 1 bay leaf; ½ tsp black peppercorns; 2½ tsp fine salt, plus more to taste; 120 g medium- or short-grain white rice, such as arborio; 3 large eggs, at room temperature; 100 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 2–3 lemons), plus more to taste; Freshly ground black pepper, to taste; 2 tbsp chopped dill (optional)

Greek chicken and rice soup made silky with eggs and lemon. A whole chicken poached for the broth, then a tempered egg-lemon liaison that thickens it without a drop of cream.

By the Soupmap Culinary Team

Prep: 15 min
Cook: 1 hr 45 min
Total: 2 hr 15 min
Effort: Takes some care
Serves: 6

The total includes 15 min of soaking, resting or chilling.

Broth richness 5/10

Spice 1/10

Comfort 8/10

Ratings by the Soupmap Culinary Team, not readers.

Gluten-free Dairy-free

Photo: robin.norwood, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Avgolemono means "egg-lemon" in Greek, and that's the whole trick of this soup: eggs whisked with lemon juice are stirred into a chicken broth with rice, turning it pale, silky and bright without any cream. Here the broth comes from poaching a whole chicken, so one pot gives you both a rich stock and tender meat to shred back in.

The only delicate moment is adding the eggs, and it stops being delicate once you know why. Pour beaten eggs straight into a hot pot and their proteins set at once into rubbery shreds. So you temper them: whisk ladles of hot broth into the egg and lemon a little at a time, which warms and dilutes them gently, then stir the warmed mixture back into the pot off the boil. From then on the soup must never boil, or the eggs will curdle.

Season the broth well, be generous with the lemon, and eat it as soon as it's made, with plenty of black pepper and a little dill.

Method

Poach the chicken

Put the chicken, breast side up, in a large pot (at least 6 l) and add the cold water; it should come most of the way up the bird. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then skim off the grey foam for a few minutes, until the surface is mostly clear.
Add the onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, peppercorns and salt. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer, partly cover and cook for 1–1 1/4 hours, turning the chicken over halfway, until the legs move loosely in their joints and the thickest part of the thigh reads at least 75°C, with no pink juices.
Lift the chicken onto a tray, tipping any broth from the cavity back into the pot, and leave it until cool enough to handle. Strain the broth through a fine sieve into a clean pot and spoon off some of the surface fat if you like. You should have about 2 l; top it up with water if you have less. Taste it: it should be well seasoned, even a touch salty, on its own, so add salt now if it needs it.
Pull all the meat from the bones in bite-sized shreds, discarding the skin and bones.

Cook the rice

Bring the broth back to a boil, stir in the rice and simmer, stirring now and then so it doesn't stick, until tender, 15–18 minutes. Add the shredded chicken for the last 2 minutes to heat through.
Turn off the heat and wait 2–3 minutes, until the soup has stopped bubbling completely.

Add the egg and lemon

While the soup settles, whisk the eggs hard in a large heatproof bowl until frothy and completely uniform, with no streaks of white, about 1 minute. Keep whisking and add the lemon juice in a slow stream.
Temper the eggs: still whisking constantly, ladle in about 250 ml of the hot broth (try to leave the rice behind) in a thin stream. Add a second ladle the same way, then a third. The mixture should now feel hot and look like a smooth, frothy, pale yellow sauce. Because the eggs have been warmed and diluted gradually, they won't seize when they meet the pot.
Pour the egg mixture back into the pot in a steady stream, stirring the soup constantly. Set it over low heat and stir gently for 2–3 minutes, until the soup is steaming and very slightly thickened, with a silky, opaque look (about 75°C if you have a thermometer). Don't let it boil, or even simmer, after adding the eggs: they will curdle into flecks.
Taste and add more salt or a squeeze more lemon. Serve straight away, with plenty of black pepper and the dill, if using.

Swaps

Cooking for coeliac disease or an allergy? Check every label: the notes below say which ones matter.

Gluten-free

It's already gluten-free as written: chicken, vegetables, rice, eggs and lemon. Stick with the rice rather than the orzo variation, which is wheat pasta, and if you take the stock shortcut, choose a stock labelled gluten-free, because many cubes and powders contain wheat.

Plant-based

Honestly, a vegan version isn't avgolemono: the eggs are the dish. The closest is a lemony rice soup. Cook the rice in 2 l well-seasoned vegetable stock (check the label, as some contain milk), then blend one ladle of the soup with the lemon juice and stir it back in. The blended rice gives it some body, but not the silkiness of egg.
If you eat eggs, a vegetarian version is much closer: use vegetable stock instead of the chicken broth, add a drained 400 g tin of chickpeas with the rice for substance, and temper the eggs exactly as in steps 7–9.

High-protein

Poach 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 400 g) alongside the whole bird for the last 25 minutes of step 2, until they reach 75°C, and shred them in with the rest: about 15 g more protein a bowl, on top of the roughly 25–30 g the whole chicken already gives.
Add a drained 400 g tin of chickpeas with the chicken in step 5: about 3 g more a bowl, and a heartier soup.

Tips

Whisk the eggs thoroughly first. Fully blended whites and yolks temper evenly; streaks of unbeaten white are what turn into stringy bits in the pot.
Temper slowly and keep whisking. The first ladle of broth matters most. Pour it in a thin stream into eggs that are already moving, and they warm up instead of cooking.
Season the broth before the eggs go in. Rice, chicken and egg all dilute it, and once the eggs are in you can't simmer it to adjust. Broth that tastes a touch over-seasoned on its own is about right.
Use fresh lemons. Bottled juice tastes flat here. Lemons vary a lot in sharpness, so add the last of the juice to taste.
If it starts to split, take the pot off the heat at once and stir. A few small flecks won't spoil the flavour.

Make ahead and storage

Poach the chicken and make the broth up to 2 days ahead. Cool quickly, refrigerate the broth and meat separately, and finish with the rice and eggs just before serving.
Leftovers contain rice and chicken, so cool them quickly, refrigerate within an hour and eat within a day. Reheat gently over low heat, stirring, until steaming hot throughout but not bubbling, and thin with a little water: the rice keeps absorbing broth. Expect the texture to be less silky than on the first day.
It doesn't freeze well: the egg turns grainy when thawed.

Variations

With orzo (not gluten-free): use 120 g orzo, the small rice-shaped wheat pasta, in place of the rice. It cooks in 8–10 minutes.
Frothy style: separate the eggs, whisk the whites to soft peaks, then whisk in the yolks and the lemon juice before tempering. It gives a lighter, airier soup.
Chicken on the side: many Greek cooks serve the poached chicken on a plate beside the soup, dressed with olive oil, lemon and pepper. Leave the meat out of step 5 and do the same.
Shortcut: poach 600 g boneless chicken thighs in 2 l good chicken stock for 20–25 minutes, until they reach 75°C, then shred and carry on from step 5. Check the stock's label if you need it gluten-free.

Reviews & cooks' tips

Reviews and tips from people who've cooked this appear here.