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I made this tonight for dinner. What a gorgeous, comforting, tasty soup! Love it! Will be adding this to my dinner repertoire.
Shirin
How To Make This Lemon Chicken Soup
This Lemon Chicken Soup Is Everything I Need.
I would like to propose an idea:
This Lemon Chicken Soup becomes your new Chicken Noodle.
Here’s why:
The base is smooth, creamy, and velvety… without cream. But even though it’s creamy, it’s also still brothy enough to slurp, like any good Chicken Noodle-y type soup should be.
It’s salty and rich from the chicken, but that punch of lemon is life-giving in a way that regular Chicken Noodle just can’t touch. And while most brothy soups leave you wanting a sandwich an hour later, this guy is chunky, with fresh vegetables, chicken, and whole wheat pasta, leaving you feeling like you just ate a real meal. Because you did.
To recap, this soup is:
- Lemony
- Vibrant
- Creamy without cream
- High protein
- SO GOOD
Move over, Chicken Noodle. Moooove over.
How This Soup Gets Creamy (Without The Cream!)
This soup is inspired by the Greek chicken soup called avgolemono soup, which is a brothy soup made creamy with eggs and finished with lemon.
It’s bright, fresh, lemony, and seriously like magic with how the egg creates the most perfect creamless creamy broth.
It takes some patience, but here’s how it works:
- Whisk your eggs and lemon juice together in a bowl.
- Slowly add a scoop of the hot soup broth to the bowl and whisk continuously (this warms the egg mixture up slowly without scrambling the eggs).
- Add the warm egg mixture to the pot of soup very slowly and keep mixing continuously.
If you take it slow and do it right, you’ve got a wonderfully creamy soup that’s dairy-free and so, so delicious.
What To Serve With Lemon Chicken Soup
This soup is honestly A WHOLE MEAL. You’ve got protein (chicken and eggs), carbs (orzo), and veggies (carrots and spinach).
But if you’re serving this for a full lunch or dinner party and want some extras on the side, here’s what I would recommend with this soup:
- Bread: Carbs on carbs please! A storebought baguette or this No Knead Bread is perfection. You also can’t go wrong with homemade garlic bread.
- Salad: This soup is just begging for a salad on the side. This Simple Green Salad is the ticket.
- Sandwich: Soup and sandwich is one of my favorite combos. Maybe this turkey sandwich? Dream lunch.
Frequently Asked Questions: Lemon Chicken Soup
Use gluten-free orzo, or sub in rice.
Skip the egg (it will be brothier), use vegetable broth, and sub in chickpeas or white beans for the chicken.
Use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth and use chickpeas or white beans instead of chicken.
Yep! Most anything will work here (parsley or basil). The only one I’d avoid is cilantro and the flavor profile isn’t the best with this!
Yep, you could add the chicken in with the broth and let it poach in the soup, and then shred after it’s fully cooked and add it back in.
Store in a container in the fridge – it will keep best for 2-3 days. The orzo likes to soak up that moisture, so you might just have to thin it out a bit as you reheat with brother or water.
Lemon Chicken Soup with Orzo
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 6 hearty servings (about 2 cups each) 1x
Description
Filling, fresh, and vibrant lemony chicken soup made creamy with NO CREAM and a secret ingredient! Recipe adapted from Cooking Light.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 carrots, peeled and diced
- half of an onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 8–10 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup whole wheat orzo
- 3-ish cups cooked chicken (I use shredded rotisserie chicken)
- 3 eggs
- juice of 3–4 lemons (about 1/2 cup)
- a handful of fresh spinach
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- lots of freshly ground pepper
- as much fresh dill as you can handle
Instructions
- Base: Heat large soup pot over medium heat. Add the olive oil. Add the carrots, onion, and garlic. Saute until fragrant and tender, about 10 minutes. (Be careful not to burn the garlic.)
- Orzo: Add the broth and bring to a simmer. Add the orzo and cook for a few minutes until softened. Stir in the chicken and remove from heat.
- Eggs: Whisk the eggs and lemon juice together in a small bowl. The idea here is to warm up the egg mixture slowly (without scrambling the eggs). Slowly add a scoop of the soup into the egg mixture. Then add your warmed egg mixture back to the soup pot – slowly, slowly, slowly, stirring constantly, until smooth and creamy.
- Final touches: Finish by stirring in your spinach, salt, pepper, and dill and adjust seasonings to taste!
Notes
Broth: If you like a chunkier soup, go for 8 cups of broth. If you like a more brothy soup, go for 10 cups.
Leftovers: This works great as leftovers. The orzo likes to soak up that moisture, so you might just have to thin it out a bit as you reheat.
Eggs: If you add your egg mixture to the soup when it’s too hot, the eggs will scramble! It’s gross. Don’t do that. To help your soup cool down more quickly in preparation for the egg mixture, you can stir in a few ice cubes.
Vegetarian: You could easily make this vegetarian by using white beans or another vegetarian protein in place of the chicken.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Soup
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: lemon chicken soup, chicken soup with orzo, chicken soup
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Kind of amazingly tasty. I personally am not a huge fan of soup, has to be really good, or I feel I wasted calories and energy cooking. This time I wanted a soup for someone with a cold. The chicken, lemon, spinach and extra protein from egg got me. I doubled the garlic, well, because garlic is great. I also threw in some green beans and practically doubled the spinach. Amazing. The person with a cold for whom I made the soup said even though couldn’t really taste it it was really good. Lol. He finished the pot. Thanks! Love this.
Everyone has their own tastes.
I double orzo. 4 lemons.
I keep rotisserie chicken and spinach in frig and add to soup on stove when I have a bowl/reheat. Otherwise both get soft and limp.
Been making this for years. Thank you!!!
Love this soup SO much! I have made it countless times and it always comes out so delicious and cozy. All my friends who try it ask for the recipe! I replace the orzo with red lentil or chickpea orzo for some added protein and it works great (just have to cook it for a little longer).
Good but very lemony. You can’t taste prior to adding to the soup because of the eggs. I think next time I’ll add 1/4 cup to the eggs then then increase if needed afterwards
Oh my gosh, I followed the recipe exactly and this just might be the best bowl of soup I’ve ever had!
To know I can make this again and again is like a gift. Thank you!
BEST chicken soup EVER!!
Tried this recipe — absolutely loved it! So fresh, creamy, and comforting without any cream. Definitely a new favorite!
I literally never leave reviews. I pulled myself away from my stove because I had to leave a review. This is AMAZING. I followed directions except that I threw the chicken in the pot and stirred it around with the onions and carrot and garlic before adding the broth and orzo, and I didn’t have dill, so I added thyme and some bizarre Greek seasoning a friend left at my house once. I am contemplating just pouring the broth into a cup and drinking that for dinner. The flavor of this is absolutely beyond incredible. I love anything lemon, but this is next level.
Delicious
But I’m not sure what is the secret ingredient in Title.
It’s the eggs!
Delicious
But I’m not sure what is the secret ingredient in Title.
This soup was absolutely delicious. I gave made lemon orzo soup before, but this was different adding the eggs. I made this soup in the Instant Pot. I added mire lemon than what the recipe called for.
Just made this tonight …..I have a bad cold 🙁
So delicious and went together easy! I added tarragon with the dill, well….because tarragon is good in anything haha! Will this freeze well?
Hi Marlene! Yes, this soup should freeze well!
I used a 0.75 oz. package of dill. I used 3 large lemons, a 5 oz. package of baby spinach and a small bunch of fresh carrots. I increased the broth by about three cups and seasoned it with Better Than Bouillon. This came out so delicious! What a wonderful recipe. The lemons made this soup so bright and really took the flavor up a notch!
Just made this soup. Added more broth as I had a lot of spinach. Added about 6 ounces of spinach and used a small package of dill as well. This is a delicious recipe. The lemon juice really kicked it up a notch. I’m putting this into my recipe box as the family loves it!
Hello- can this be made in advance and just reheated or does the egg mixture not reheat well?
I have not made this soup yet but I intend to give it a go even though I’m not sure I’ll use “3-ish grams cooked chicken”, I might add a touch more!
This turned out incredible. I love a lemony broth and this was perfect! Can’t wait to take leftovers for lunch all week.
We love this soup! Amazing amount of protein and super yummy and satiating. Have passed the recipe on and it’s always a hit. Thank you!
This was excellent!!! Percent for winter
This is my favorite!!!
Everyone I have made this soup for has LOVED it including picky kids.
Delicious soup! The only change I made was adding 2 bay leaves (I made a larger pot) and a little bit of poultry seasoning for just a little more depth in taste.
I’ve made this twice now and it’s been delicious both times. Only modifications were to add celery to the onion and carrot, subbed dried for the fresh dill, and didn’t use spinach simply because I almost never have it on hand. It’s a great way to use up some of the Thanksgiving turkey scraps and stock.
So good! Subbed bow tie pasta and frozen kale from summer garden. Turned out great. The lemon/egg thickener was brilliant.
This was delicious! I definitely seasoned my chicken before adding to the pot and it elevated the flavor. Will try this recipe again maybe sub in Cod or Haddock. I think the flavors of the soup are versatile for other proteins
Looks so good.