The snow storm of 2014 that consisted of 2 inches of snow and chilled us Southerners to the bone has turned into sunshine and 50 degrees and distant memories of perfect snow days. I love January to pieces and snow days that slide right up to a hint of Spring make me love my Southern homeland even more. As soon as the thaw began, I started craving lemon and hunting my flip flops.
Then, I remembered how much I love this recipe. Let me just say that this soup tastes like late winter meets early spring more than anything else I know. It’s like winter meets spring and takes her to a square dance with daisies in her hair. Or something just as precious. Put it on your weekend menu! You won’t be sorry.
Instead of using cream as a thickening agent, this one uses egg yolks. Don’t let that scare you. It’s easy to do and has the best silky texture ever!! The girls LOVE it almost as much as we do! Stevie likes this soup almost as much as he likes beef stew. Okay, maybe the lemon has gone to my head, but he thinks it’s pretty dandy.
What you’ll need:
- 2 T butter & 3 T olive oil
- 1 large onion, diced
- 2-3 stalks of celery, diced
- 10 baby carrots, diced
- 2 T butter
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 cup jasmine rice
- 2-3 cups cooked chicken (I usually use one rotisserie chicken and cut the white meat into bite sized chunks)
- 2 boxes chicken stock (32 oz per box, may also need to add a 1/2 to a cup of water, if it gets too thick at the end)
- 1/2 cup lemon juice, fresh squeezed (2-3 lemons, depending on the size and juiciness!)
- 2 T. honey
- 1/2 white pepper
- 2 handfuls of fresh spinach
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 6 egg yolks, beaten to a light yellow color
What you’ll do:
- Saute the chopped onion, celery and carrots in the butter and oil, until the onions are translucent.
- Add the flour, with salt and pepper and cook the flour for about a minute.
- Add the chicken stock and fresh lemon juice and stir to loosen the flour and all the bits of caramelized onion from the bottom.
- Add rice, bring to boil, stirring frequent enough to keep the rice from sticking, and then turn the heat down to low.
- Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender.
- Add the chicken, spinach, honey, salt, and pepper
- Beat the egg yolks until light in color. Gradually add some of the hot soup to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Return the egg mixture to the soup pot and heat through.
- DO NOT boil the soup once you add the egg yolks.
ENJOY!!! This is your Feb 1st recipe for the new menu plan! See you on Monday for the full February Meal Plan. I’ll be sharing our Super Bowl food on Facebook soon, but you might consider making some homemade brownies or my favorite crowd pleaser chocolate chip cookie recipe. What are your Super Bowl Food plans?! I’m linking with Ruth’s Thrifty Thursday, so check out all the other recipes/projects/etc!
P.S. I’m listening to all your wonderful suggestions and trying to implement as many as possible. Here’s your easy-to-print recipe!
Lemon smooches,
edie
Greek Lemon Chicken Soup
Ingredients
- 2 T butter & 3 T olive oil
- 1 large onion diced
- 2-3 stalks of celery diced
- 10 baby carrots diced
- 2 T butter
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 cup jasmine rice
- 2-3 cups cooked chicken I usually use one rotisserie chicken and cut the white meat into bite sized chunks
- 2 boxes chicken stock 32 oz per box, may also need to add a 1/2 to a cup of water, if it gets too thick at the end
- 1/2 cup lemon juice fresh squeezed
- 2 T. honey
- 1/2 white pepper
- 2 handfuls of fresh spinach
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 6 egg yolks beaten to a light yellow color
Instructions
- Saute the chopped onion, celery and carrots in the butter and oil, until the onions are translucent.
- Add the flour, with salt and pepper and cook the flour for about a minute.
- Add the chicken stock and fresh lemon juice and stir to loosen the flour and all the bits of caramelized onion from the bottom.
- Add rice, bring to boil, stirring frequent enough to keep the rice from sticking, and then turn the heat down to low.
- Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender.
- Add the chicken, spinach, honey, salt, and pepper.
- Beat the egg yolks until light in color. Gradually add some of the hot soup to the egg yolks, stirring constantly.
- Return the egg mixture to the soup pot and heat through.
- DO NOT boil the soup once you add the egg yolks.
This looks super delicious and I am thrilled that I actually have all of the ingredients and can make it tonight. This little snippet of winter wonderland has left my dinner thinking mind in a state of not wanting what I had thought I was going to make. Hot soup sounds so much better! Thanks friend!
I made a Greek-ish chicken and rice soup on Wednesday. I had planned to make Souvlaki Chicken for dinner that night, but because it was cold and the kids didn’t have school, I turned it into a soup. It was one of those thrown together soups with no real recipe. I just used oregano, garlic and lemon. The broth was heavenly. But I want to try yours with the eggs and flour.
O my word! Looks & sounds YUMMY! I’m usually intimidated by the idea a making *real* soup (as in … not from a can), but this looks totally doable!
This looks wonderful, thank you! It’s so nice to see a recipe that doesn’t use cream to thicken it,said the dairy free girl:) Any guestimate on servings? Looking forward to the February menu, you never disappoint!
My family has loved every soup recipe I’ve tried of yours, and several are in our regular winter rotation. I think I could eat soup and a nice crusty bread every night for dinner, especially in the month of February. Thanks for sharing!
Funny! We just had lemon chicken soup on our snow day too! So good, but not like this recipe. I’ll be trying this one sometime before our LONG northern winter is over.
This is the soup I wish I had made earlier this week. You don’t want to know what happened to the minestrone mess that happened instead. Thanks for the recipe!
This looks very similar to a Green lemon soup I had years ago called Avgolemeno. Something like that, anyway, I LOVED it. I’ll have to try yours. Sounds delicious!! I’m having 20 people over Sunday for the Super Bowl. Everybody is bringing food, but I’m making BBQ Brisket sandwiches, potato skins, salsa and guacamole for starters. AND cleaning every inch of my house. UGH.
This looks fabulous! I’ve made your Chicken Pot Pie soup a bajillion times already so I’ll be excited to try this one, too.
We need a couple of calm snow days down here! I’m in Birmingham and it’s been a nightmare. I finally have all my people back together–my nest is back in order and I think the ice is gone! So many terrible stories here. I’m ready to stay in pajama pants and eat soup. Might have to make some cookies, too. 😉
Thanks, Edie!
edie… as the crow flies, we don’t live that far from each other. We had a total of 6 inches of snow and this morning we still had 3″ of snow on our shady back deck. The Greek Lemon Soup sounds yummy!
This sounds wonderful! I often use rotisserie chickens in my soups – I even boil them with 1-2 T. vinegar to make my stock. Supposedly the little bit of vinegar leaches minerals out of the bones and enriches the broth–at least that is what Nourishing Traditions book says! We love jasmine rice so much it is all we use. A close friend’s mother-in-law is Greek and makes Greek Lemon soup – sounds a lot like this!
Seriously. I cannot thank you enough for adding the easy to print button. No more copying and pasting for me. You are awesome.
This soup looks divine…gonna definitely try it. Spring is around the corner and the buttercups will be blooming this time next month here (Memphis). We are geared up for Super Bowl Sunday. Go Broncos! PM is the man.
I’m scratching my recipe for tonight and making this instead 🙂
Making tonight. I know jasmine rice would be preferred, but do you think in this case I would be fine with regular long grain? That would mean I didn’t have to run out to the store with 3 little ones in tow.
Thanks for all the great recipes!!!
Made this for dinner tonight. It’s a keeper! Enjoyed by all including the 12yo boys who have less than discerning tastebuds;) Thanks, Edie!!
Well, it took me a couple months to finally make this soup, but it was worth the wait! Wonderful recipe – the whole family loved it even though it wasn’t exactly soup weather today. 🙂
How many servings in this soup? This is a new favorite for my family!
I just made this, but added Orzo instead of Jasmine Rice….ONLY because I always have Orzo on hand, but usually only have Jasmine, if it is part of a package left over from use in another recipe. I only have the tri colored Orzo, which turned out to be perfect. Loved the colors, and they matched the colors in the soup. I would like to ask a question though….what is the purpose of the eggs? My mom is Greek and makes several variations of a soup similar to this, and she also puts an egg in hers……So Im used to the egg, but not 6 egg yolks! So just wondering what the egg adds to the overall body/and/or taste of the soup, unless there is another purpose. I know it cant be to thicken it, as we’ve already added the flour, and the Rice will thicken it even further.
It makes it more like a cream soup, using eggs instead of cream!
Glad you liked it, it’s one of our faves!!
Thank you so much. Now I remember you saying that. Guess it flew right over my head!