Avgolemono- Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

This one is a Lantzy family favorite and we have definitely done it our own way. This is a great go to soul warming soup that I typically have everything on hand to whip up real quick. I will be sharing my winter pantry go to’s soon!

Ingredients

- Whole chicken or 6 chicken thighs

- 4 Carrots

- 4 Celery stalks

- 1 Onion

- 2 Lemons

- 8 cups chicken stock or broth

Recipe

1. Option 1: To keep it super easy you can pick up a whole rotisserie chicken. Option 2: Raw whole chicken. Option 3: Chicken thighs. If you chose something raw I suggest baking it in the oven for an hour seasoned with your favorite seasoning. Lately I have been using Traegar veggie seasoning on nearly everything.

2. Chop and saute carrots, celery, onions.

3. Add the chicken and veggies into one pot with chicken broth. Zest two lemons into pot. Along with the juice of at least one lemon maybe two, you can always add more later.

4. Let simmer for a while.

5. In a separate pot boil rice, orzo or whatever you have on hand.

6. Serve together maybe with some extra salt and lemon on top.

Here are my additional thoughts on the chicken and broth part of the recipe. If you have a raw chicken you can actually just make your own broth. If I have time I like to bake my chicken before, then throw it in a pot with a bunch of water, onion, carrot and celery. Let is boil/simmer for a few hours then use that chicken and that broth to make the soup. You can use the rotisserie chicken the same way you just don’t have to bake it.

Italian Wedding Soup... my way

This is a quick &easy super delicious soup for winter sniffles and beyond.

Ingredients

For the rest:

- 1 onion

- 4 stalks celery

- 4 carrots

- 8 cups Chicken, beef or elk broth or stock

- Orzo

For meatballs:

- 1lb ground pork

- 1lb ground meat

- Bread Crumbs

- 2 eggs

- Seasoning (I use Trader Joe’s Green Goddess)

- Beef tallow, butter or olive oil

- *2 Tbs Matzo Ball powder Not necessary

and I used it this time and it made the meatballs next level.

Recipe

1. Start by combining all of the ingredients for the meatballs. Make into balls and brown in a pot or pan. I prefer to use the pot I will be making the soup because I want to keep all of the flavor in the same place. If that means you have to brown them in batches, do that and set aside.

2. Chop and sauté the carrots, celery and onions (you can use garlic here as well, my husband just has a sensitivity so we never use garlic).

3. Add carrots, celery, onions, meatballs and stock or broth together.

4. In a separate pot boil the orzo. If you don’t have orzo use whatever pasta you have on hand, we didn’t have orzo so I used filini, it was cute. You can also use rice in a pinch.

5. Simmer for however long you can stand it. I simmered for about 30 mins and then served. We had a bunch left over and it got better over time.

6. Serve in the same bowl, soup over pasta.