Or Lemon Chicken Soup with Rice. (So nice!)

Avgolemono is a Mediterranean broth that is made with eggs and lemon. This is one of My Mom’s favorite soups and several years ago we looked up recipes to make it. We surveyed a bunch of recipes and this recipe is the result of that research. Since then, I have made this on a fairly regular basis and have adjusted the recipe to my taste.

Avgolemono has a creamy texture which I had previously thought was from milk or cream but is actually from an egg suspension. Avgolemono is usually made with chicken broth and contains rice or risotto. It may have chicken but it doesn’t always. I tend to make really chunky soups with lots of meat.

This is another recipe that is a great way to use up leftover chicken. I have also made it with turkey and it was just as delicious. This recipe does not freeze well because the egg falls out of solution. The soup still tastes good but it doesn’t look at appetizing. This recipe makes about 4 large servings (Josh sized) or 6 normal servings (Mary sized.)

6 cups chicken broth

1-2 cloves garlic minced

1 cup rice

1 lb chicken or ~ 2 cups chopped, cooked chicken

2 eggs

1/2 cup lemon juice

Handful chopped parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

Bring the stock to a boil. Add rice and garlic; then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add chicken and cook for 5 – 10 minutes. If you are using raw chicken cook the chicken until done; if you use cooked chicken just cook until heated through.

The next step is what gives this soup its creamy texture. Beat the eggs and lemon juice until well combined. If there are chunks of unbeaten egg, you may end up with stings of cooked egg in the soup.

Remove soup from heat and slowly pour egg mixture into the soup while constantly stirring. If you add the egg too quickly or don’t remove the soup from the heat you could end up with chunks of egg in the soup instead of an even suspension. (This weekend I forgot to remove the pan from the heat and I ended up with a little scrambled eggs in my soup! No big deal, it is still edible and tasted great.) After all of the egg mixture has been added stir in the parsley.

Pita chips are a great accompaniment to this soup. Enjoy!