This Greek Chicken Soup Gets Its Magic From Two Special Ingredients

Looking to enjoy a bit of quality time with your kitchen? For a labor of love — which is still pretty low on actual labor — we're huge fans of avgolemono. This Greek chicken and rice soup is a creamy, beloved dish that's somehow both light and filling. And one of our favorite renditions of this classic comes from comedian-turned-cookbook-author Gus Constantellis. His book, My Greek Mom's Recipes contains a recipe for avgolemono that comes together in under two hours — but since most of that time is totally hands-off, it's a deceptively easy dinner.

To make Constantellis's avgolemono, you'll place a whole chicken in a pot alongside veggies and aromatics; simmer until tender. Remove the bird and dice it up into chunks before adding rice to the pot (which will be full of rich stock). After your rice cooks, you'll carefully whip up a frothy egg and lemon juice mixture to slowly add to your soup. Once everything's integrated, ladle the soup into bowls and add the chunks of diced chicken — we also highly recommend finishing everything off with plenty of black pepper. Expect a silky broth with a slight edge of heartiness from the chicken and rice, brightened by fresh lemon.

Avgolemono Chicken Lemon Soup

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (about 3 pounds, or 1.4 kg), trimmed
• 2 ribs celery, roughly chopped
• 2 medium carrots, roughly chopped
• 1 medium red or gold potato, roughly chopped
• 1 small white onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more for serving
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus more for serving
• 1 cup (180 g) white basmati rice, rinsed until the water runs clear and drained
• 2 large eggs, whites and yolks separated
• 1 tablespoon cold water
• Juice of 1½ lemons, divided, plus more for serving

Instructions

1. Place the chicken in a large pot and fill with enough water to cover it. Bring the water to a boil, then continue boiling for about 5 minutes. Drain the water from the pot. (This is a step that my aunt has added to a lot of her meat recipes to properly clean the meat.)
2. Refill the pot with enough water to cover the chicken. Add the celery, carrots, potato, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 1 hour, or until boiled, tender, and cooked through and no longer pink with an internal temperature of 165°F (74°C). (If white foam forms on the surface of the water, remove it with a spoon.)
3. While the chicken simmers, soak the rice for about 20 minutes, then drain in a colander and set aside.
4. Remove the chicken from the pot to a cutting board. Using a wooden spoon or ladle, mush the vegetables in the chicken broth. Add the rice to the pot and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let sit for 10 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, dice the chicken (light and dark meat) into smaller chunks.
6. For the egg-lemon sauce (avgolemono), in a small bowl, whisk the egg whites until frothy. Add the egg yolks and cold water and whisk again until frothy.
7. Add half of the lemon juice to the soup, then bring it to a simmer. Whisk the remaining lemon juice in with the eggs, then slowly add the egg-lemon mixture to the soup, one ladleful at a time, preventing it from burning. Mix carefully, making sure the egg does not curdle. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, then remove the pot from the heat.
8. Add the chicken to soup bowls, ladle the broth over it, and serve with more chicken, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. (If there is leftover soup, try not to cover the soup until it is fully cooled because the sauce will curdle.)

Excerpted from My Greek Mom's Recipes: She Died. I Wrote This Cookbook (2026), published by Rock Point, an imprint of The Quarto Group.