Avgolemono Greek Lemon Soup

Whether it’s hot outside, or freezing cold, we always enjoy this simple lemon and egg soup. It only takes a few minutes to prepare, and it has a bold lemony flavour, that I love!

The egg makes the soup a bit creamy, but not too thick, and it’s added slowly to the soup, to prevent it from turning into “scrambled eggs”!

Avgolemono Greek Lemon Soup

Serve this refreshing soup as a first course, or make it the main course, with a salad or sandwiches.

Serves 2-3

Prep: 5 minutes     Cook: 12 minutes

Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1/4 cup orzo pasta (or any small pasta)
• 1 large egg
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• salt and ground black pepper
• (optional) lemon slices, to garnish

Directions

1. Pour the stock into a medium saucepan
2. Over medium heat, bring the stock to a boil.
3. Add the pasta and cook for 9 minutes, over medium-low heat.
4. While the pasta is cooking, beat the eggs until frothy
5. Into the eggs, add the lemon juice and 1 tbsp cold water.
6. Next, into the egg mixture, very slowly stir in a ladleful of the hot chicken stock
7. After that, slowly add one or two more ladlesful.
8. Take the stock off the heat, and slowly stir in the egg mixture
9. Stir well, and then season with salt and pepper, to taste
10. Serve at once, garnished with lemon slices (optional).

In the photo below, I added a lemon slice in each bowl, just before serving the soup. I took this photo on February 14, 2020, when it was the first course for our Valentine’s Day supper.

Recipe Notes

• We usually use bottled lemon juice, unless there’s a lemon in the fridge
• For extra lemon flavour, sprinkle with True Lemon, in the soup bowls
• We like the orzo fairly soft, so cook it a shorter time, if you prefer al dente.
• The soup’s name Avgolemono, means egg and lemon in Greek.
• Don’t let the soup boil again, after the eggs have been added, or it will curdle.
• This recipe is adapted from the Ultimate 30 Minute Cookbook, by Jenni Fleetwood.

About the Cookbook

• The Ultimate 30 Minute Cookbook is beautiful, with a single recipe per page, clear instructions, and photographs of the cooking steps and the finished dish.
• It was published in Australia in 1998, and is now out of print
• The cookbook is divided into sections for 10 minute, 20 minute and 30 minute meals
• Most recipes are simple, with just a short list of ingredients.
• This recipe is from the 10 Minute section, but I cook it a bit longer than that!

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