15-Minute Chicken Avgolemono Soup

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may have read the article that I wrote about some of the delicious Greek food that my family and I enjoyed during our time in Greece. Since we visited five of the nine geographical regions while we were there, we were able to visit many restaurants and, therefore, try lots of delicious Greek dishes.

Among the dishes that we tried more than once, and probably became the most familiar with, during that time are pastitsio (a layered, baked pasta dish with meat and cheese) and spanakotiropitas (a savory baked pastry with spinach and cheese). And, either of these comfort foods would have been worthy of being selected as this week’s featured Greek dish for #FoodieFriday. However, both require way more cooking time than the 15 minute-limit that I’ve set for the series of quick recipes that I’ve been sharing in an attempt to help busy parents get a healthy meal on the table in a relatively short amount of time.

So, I decided to make an avgolemono soup instead. Found in Greek, Italian and Turkish cuisines, among others, avgolemono refers to a type of soup that contains egg, lemon juice and broth. And, since I kept coming across different versions that included chicken, I put chicken in mine, as well, so that it would feel more like a main dish and less like a meal starter or first course.

The different recipes that I found for chicken avgolemono wouldn’t have taken as long as either of the above-mentioned baked dishes, but as with other recipes I’ve tweaked, I changed a couple of things to help speed up the cooking time of the soup that I made. Keep reading to find out just how easy it will be to make my 15-Minute Chicken Avgolemono Soup for your family! (Be sure to save it to your Pinterest board if you’re on Pinterest!) All of the ingredients that I used should be available at your local grocery store. However, if you choose to buy any of the recommended ingredients on Amazon using a link that I shared, I will earn income from qualifying purchases that will help support this site.

What You’ll Need To Make 15-Minute Chicken Avgolemono Soup (Six servings)

*1 Tablespoon of Butter

*1/2 Cup of Shredded Carrots

*1/2 Cup of White Onion, chopped

* 1/2 Cup of Celery, chopped

*1 Cup of Shredded, Cooked Chicken

*4 Cups of Low-Sodium Chicken Broth

*1 Cup of Orzo–I used the Whole Foods Market’s Organic Orzo, which can be ready in a few as 7 minutes. But, you could use a different brand, such as Barilla’s orzo which will only need to cook for a couple of minutes longer.

*1/2 Cup of Lemon Juice–Try to use fresh-squeezed lemons.

*2 Eggs

*Salt (to taste)–I didn’t measure this, but I probably used 1/4 of a teaspoon.

*Black Pepper (optional)

How To Make 15-Minute Chicken Avgolemono Soup

1. In your favorite soup or stock pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Then, sautee the carrot, celery and onion for about five minutes. (FYI, since you’ll be adding more than four cups of liquid plus the solid ingredients, so you’ll probably want to use a four-quart pot.)

2. Once the veggies have begun to soften, add the chicken broth and chicken.

3. Then add the orzo and bring all of these ingredients to a boil. (If you feel like you need more broth, you should add it at this point.) Continue boiling this soup base for approximately six minutes.

4. While the above ingredients are boiling, mix the egg and lemon juice together in a bowl.

5. After the pot’s ingredients have been boiling for the length of time recommended in Step 3 (6 minutes), use a ladle or large spoon to lift out some of the hot broth from the pot. Then, carefully pour the broth into the bowl containing the egg and lemon juice and, using a whisk or fork, quickly blend the broth into the egg and lemon mixture. Once the mixture looks well blended, ladle out a little more broth from the pot and thoroughly stir it into the bowl.

6. Now, carefully pour the egg/lemon juice/broth mixture into the pot and mix all ingredients together well with your spoon or ladle.

7. Most recipes recommend that the soup be removed from heat immediately at this point, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I tasted the soup and could see that, since I used low-sodium chicken broth, it would benefit from having a bit of salt added to it. So, I stirred a pinch of salt into the soup and tasted it. It really brought out the soup’s flavor!

8. I removed the pot from the stove after adding the salt and then ladled the soup into individual bowls. It was delicious and will definitely become a go-to when we’re craving soup!

Substitutions: Olive oil may also be used to sautee vegetables.

Additional Add-Ins: I added a bit of pepper to my bowl because I thought the contrasting color would be a nice touch. But, you don’t have to do that.