🍋 Avgolemono soup
Avgolemono is a Greek chicken soup thickened at the last minute with eggs beaten with lemon juice. Rice simmered in the broth gives it body, while the egg and lemon make it silky, pale yellow and pleasantly sharp. It is light but comforting, served hot with black pepper and often a little dill, sometimes with shredded chicken stirred back in.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1.5 litres chicken broth
- 100 g short- or medium-grain rice
- 3 eggs
- Juice of 2 lemons (about 80 ml)
- 200 g cooked chicken breast, shredded (optional)
- Salt, black pepper, chopped dill to serve
Method
- Bring the broth to the boil, add the rice and simmer for 15–18 minutes until soft. Season with salt and add the chicken if using.
- Beat the eggs in a bowl until frothy, then whisk in the lemon juice.
- Slowly whisk two ladles of hot broth into the eggs to warm them without curdling.
- Take the pot off the heat and stir the egg mixture into the soup. Warm gently for 2–3 minutes, stirring, without letting it boil.
- Serve at once with black pepper and dill.
How to make it lighter
- A bowl is naturally light; shredded chicken breast turns it into a high-protein meal without much extra fat.
- Use less rice for a thinner, lighter soup — the eggs still make it silky.
- Skim the fat off homemade broth once it cools; the flavour stays.
History
Avgolemono simply means “egg-lemon” in Greek, and the same mixture is used as a sauce for meatballs, stuffed vine leaves and vegetables. Egg-and-lemon sauces are shared across the eastern Mediterranean: Sephardic Jewish cooking has a close relative called agristada, and Turkish cuisine has its terbiyeli soups. In Greece the soup is a family standby on cold days, and the egg-lemon finish also crowns magiritsa, the soup eaten after the Easter midnight service.
Count it in one photo
Point your camera at the table — Me Nutrition recognises Avgolemono soup and every other dish, with calories and macros for each. Ate only half? Slide it.
Download on the App StoreSimilar dishes
Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →