Avgolemono is a Greek chicken and lemon soup. It is perfect for those times when you have a cold, the flu, or want some fresh comfort food. It’s lemony, chickeny, ricey, and just plain delicious.
I’ve tried more authentic recipes for avgolemono soup, but they don’t work for me. Some of them have no vegetables in them. Some are not lemony enough for my liking, which becomes even more conspicuous when I have a stuffy nose. Some of the recipes have you use carrots and celery to make the broth and then discard them. Call me crazy, but I can’t justify throwing away perfectly good vegetables, especially when I know the soup will be the only thing I’ll eat all day when I’m sick.
So anyway, here’s my super-lemony, extra veggie-filled take on avgolemono soup.
Avgolemono Soup
Serves 8:
2 tsp olive oil
1 1/2 onions, diced
3 carrots, diced
3 celery stalks, roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
1 sprig fresh rosemary
2 sprigs fresh mystery herb (it’s either oregano or thyme, I forgot to label that herb in my garden)
1 1/2 tsp chicken soup base
1 quarts water
1 lb. raw chicken, cubed into bite-size pieces
1 cup uncooked rice
2 eggs, beaten
zest and juice of 2 lemons
salt & pepper to taste
Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, and celery to the pot. Sweat the veggies for a few minutes. Toss in the bay leaves, herbs, soup base, and water. Bring to a boil.
Put the chicken and rice in the pot. Let it all simmer for 15-20 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the rice is cooked through.
Mix the eggs and lemon in a bowl. Slowly add 2 cups of the soup broth to the egg mixture while whisking the egg mixture (otherwise you’ll end up with scrambled eggs in your soup). Add it into the soup pot. Stir it up, taste the soup, and add salt and pepper as needed. I tend to add a full teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.
| Nutrition Facts | ||||||
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Serving Size 294 g
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Amount Per Serving
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Calories
227
Calories from Fat
39
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% Daily Value*
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Total Fat
4.4g
7%
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Saturated Fat
1.1g
6%
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Trans Fat
0.0g
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Cholesterol
90mg
30%
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Sodium
348mg
15%
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Total Carbohydrates
26.5g
9%
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Dietary Fiber
2.2g
9%
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Sugars
3.0g
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Protein
20.2g
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Nutrition Grade A-
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* Based on a 2000 calorie diet
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