Avgolemono: the Greek lemon and egg soup, and how not to curdle it

Avgolemono is a Greek soup of chicken broth and rice, thickened at the last moment with eggs whisked into lemon juice. It turns silky, pale and bright with lemon. The secret to keeping it smooth is tempering: whisk ladles of hot broth into the egg and lemon one at a time, so the eggs warm gently. Then stir the mixture back into the pot off the heat, and never let the soup boil again. Do that and it will not curdle.

What avgolemono is

The name simply means "egg-lemon" in Greek, from avgo (egg) and lemoni (lemon). Strictly speaking, avgolemono is the egg-and-lemon mixture itself. Greek cooks use it to finish many dishes: stuffed vine leaves, meatball soup, braised lamb with lettuce, and the soup of offal and herbs traditionally eaten after the midnight service at Orthodox Easter. The chicken and rice soup is simply its best-known use outside Greece.

Egg-and-lemon liaisons appear right across the eastern Mediterranean. Turkish cooks finish soups such as düğün çorbası (wedding soup) with a similar mixture, and Sephardic Jewish cooking has its own egg-lemon sauce, agristada. Some food historians think the Greek version is connected to these older traditions, but the exact line of descent is uncertain, and it is best to treat any confident origin story with caution.

Why it curdles (and how to stop it)

Eggs set when they are heated. Drop cold beaten eggs straight into boiling broth and the proteins set instantly into shreds: in effect, egg-drop soup. That is lovely in its place, but it isn't avgolemono. You want the egg to thicken the broth evenly, which it does gently at temperatures well below boiling. Three things work in your favour:

• Tempering raises the temperature of the eggs gradually, so they never meet a shock of heat.
• Lemon juice dilutes the egg and makes it a little more tolerant of heat.
• Starch from the rice or orzo cooked in the broth helps protect the eggs from clumping. Some cooks also whisk in a teaspoon of cornflour for extra insurance.

How to make avgolemono

Serves 6. Prep 10 minutes. Cook about 30 minutes.

Ingredients

• 1.5 litres (6 cups) good chicken stock
• 100 g (½ cup) short-grain rice, or orzo
• 200 g cooked shredded chicken (optional)
• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• Juice of 2 lemons (about 80–100 ml)
• Salt, pepper and chopped dill

Method

1. Bring the stock to a simmer. Add the rice and cook for about 15 minutes, until tender. Add the chicken, if using, and warm it through.
2. Turn the heat down low, so the broth is hot but no longer bubbling.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until smooth and slightly frothy, about a minute. Whisk in the lemon juice.
4. Whisking all the time, pour in one ladle of hot broth in a thin stream. Add a second ladle, then a third and a fourth. The bowl should feel warm to the touch.
5. Take the pot off the heat. Pour the tempered egg mixture back in slowly, stirring gently all the time.
6. If it needs more thickening, return the pot to the lowest heat for a minute or two, stirring constantly, until the soup lightly coats the back of a spoon. It must not bubble.
7. Season with salt and pepper, taste for lemon, scatter with dill and serve at once.

The stock matters here more than in almost any other soup, because there is so little else in the bowl. If you have time, make your own using our guide to making stock from scratch. If not, choose a good low-salt shop-bought stock.

Common mistakes

• Boiling after the eggs go in. This is the main cause of curdling. Once the eggs are in, the soup should never bubble again.
• Tempering too fast. One big splash of broth into the eggs does the same damage as adding the eggs to the pot. Go one ladle at a time.
• Using eggs straight from the fridge. They are more likely to seize. Take them out 20 minutes ahead.
• Too little lemon. The soup should taste clearly of lemon. Start with two lemons and add more to taste.
• Leaving it to sit. The rice keeps absorbing broth, so the soup thickens as it stands. Serve it straight away.

If it starts to curdle

Act quickly. Take the pot off the heat and stand it in a sink of cold water. If the texture is only slightly grainy, whisk hard, or blitz briefly with a stick blender, and it will often come back to smooth. If the eggs have set into distinct shreds, there's no undoing it. It will still taste good, just more like stracciatella than avgolemono.

Where to find it in our books

The version above follows the Avgolemono in Soups of the World, where it sits in the Mediterranean chapter alongside the Fasolada, the Greek white bean soup, and Stracciatella alla Romana, the Roman egg-in-broth soup where the eggs are meant to set into ribbons. There are other takes on the soup in our other books too: an orzo version, Greek Avgolemono with Orzo & Chicken, in The Healthy Kitchen, and a meat-free one, Avgolemono with Orzo & Egg-Lemon Broth, in The Vegetarian Kitchen. You can find them all with the recipe finder, and if you are new to cooking this way, our Mediterranean kitchen starter guide is a good place to begin.

Questions people ask

Can I reheat avgolemono?

Yes, but gently. Warm it over the lowest heat, stirring, and stop as soon as it is hot. Add a splash of stock or water if the rice has thickened it too much. Never let it boil.

Can I freeze avgolemono?

It isn't recommended. The egg-thickened broth tends to separate when thawed, and the rice turns soft. Instead, freeze the plain chicken and rice broth, and add the egg and lemon when you reheat it.

Rice or orzo?

Both are traditional and both work. Short-grain rice gives a slightly creamier soup because it releases more starch. Orzo gives a little more bite. Use about the same weight of either.

Is avgolemono dairy-free?

Yes. The creaminess comes entirely from the eggs, with no milk, cream or butter. As written above it is also gluten-free if you use rice rather than orzo and check your stock.