Avgolemono

Ingredients

Soup

• 1.5 litresgood chicken stock
• 300 gcooked chicken, shredded
• 100 gshort-grain rice or orzo
• 1 tspsalt
• white pepper

Avgolemono

• 3eggs, separated
• juice of 2 lemons, about 80 ml

To serve

• chopped dill or parsley
• extra lemon

Directions

1. Bring the stock to a simmer, add the rice and cook 15–18 minutes until soft. Add the shredded chicken and season. Take the pot off the heat and let it stop bubbling completely.
2. Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks in a large bowl. Whisk in the yolks, then the lemon juice, a little at a time.
3. Now temper. Ladle hot broth into the egg mixture in a thin stream, whisking hard, one ladle at a time, until you have added four or five ladles and the bowl is properly warm. Rushing this is how avgolemono becomes scrambled egg soup, and there is no way back from that.
4. Pour the tempered mixture back into the pot, whisking as you go.
5. Return to the lowest possible heat and stir constantly for 3–4 minutes until the soup thickens slightly and turns opaque and velvety. It must never simmer, let alone boil — the moment it does, it splits.
6. Taste and add more lemon: it should be assertively sharp, not merely lemon-scented.
7. Serve immediately with dill and a wedge of lemon. It does not reheat well, so make what you will eat.

Technique

• Whisking the whites separately is what gives the soup its pale, foamy body. It is worth the extra bowl.
• Off the heat, then temper, then the gentlest heat. Every failed avgolemono skipped one of those three.
• If it does split, it is still edible but grainy. Blending will not fix it.

Substitutions

• Orzo instead of rice, which is common and slightly quicker.
• The same technique thickens a lamb or fish soup, and the sauce for dolmades.

Variations

• Kotosoupa avgolemono made by poaching a whole chicken and using that broth.
• Magiritsa, the Easter version with lamb offal and plenty of dill.

History

A sauce or soup made by whisking egg and lemon juice into a hot broth, most commonly chicken broth with rice, thickening the liquid into a smooth, tangy, pale yellow preparation, documented across Greece for many generations and closely related to similar egg-lemon sauce traditions found across the wider eastern Mediterranean and former Ottoman-influenced regions. Its technique, carefully tempering the whisked egg and lemon mixture into the hot broth to thicken it without curdling, requires practiced skill within Greek home cooking, passed down across generations of careful technique. Avgolemono remains one of the most iconic and distinctive elements of Greek cuisine, used both as a finishing sauce for various dishes and as the base of its own well-known soup.

Frequently asked questions

What is Avgolemono?

Avgolemono is a soup & stew from Greece: chicken-rice soup thickened with whisked egg-lemon. A sauce or soup made by whisking egg and lemon juice into a hot broth, most commonly chicken broth with rice, thickening the liquid into a smooth, tangy, pale yellow preparation, documented across Greece for many generations and closely related to similar egg-lemon sauce traditions found across the wider eastern Mediterranean and former Ottoman-influenced regions. Its technique, carefully tempering the whisked egg and lemon mixture into the hot broth to thicken it without curdling, requires practiced skill within Greek home cooking, passed down across generations of careful technique. Avgolemono remains one of the most iconic and distinctive elements of Greek cuisine, used both as a finishing sauce for various dishes and as the base of its own well-known soup.

How long does Avgolemono take to make?

Avgolemono takes 10 min of preparation and 45 min of cooking. The recipe makes 4 servings. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Avgolemono?

Yes, within limits. Orzo instead of rice, which is common and slightly quicker. The same technique thickens a lamb or fish soup, and the sauce for dolmades.

What is the most important thing to get right in Avgolemono?

Return to the lowest possible heat and stir constantly for 3–4 minutes until the soup thickens slightly and turns opaque and velvety. It must never simmer, let alone boil — the moment it does, it splits.