How to Make Egg Drop Soup
You won't be dialing for take-out once you master how to make egg drop soup. The dish has become a staple in Chinese restaurants across America, but it's easy and inexpensive to make at home.The finishing ingredient--egg--is added at the end of the cooking process. Beaten eggs are slowly poured in the hot soup while the broth is constantly stirred in a circular motion, creating long, thin strands of cooked egg. It's important the egg isn't poured too quickly or the cooked bits will be too large.
Cornstarch is added to the soup as a thickening agent. In the cooking world, when water and starch are combined and stirred into another liquid, it is known as a slurry. Arrowroot can also be used as the starch, though it's not as common.
While egg drop soup is often referenced in Chinese cuisine, other cultures have similar soups. In Italy, "stracciatella" is made with eggs and Parmesan cheese; in France, eggs are added to thicken a garlic soup known as "le tourin"; and in Greece they have "avgolemono," a lemony broth with strands of egg.
Transcript
-Hey everybody. It's Chef Lovely, and today we are gonna
make an egg drop soup with chicken and noodles. So,
here are the ingredients: 4 cups low sodium chicken broth;
3 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce; 3 garlic cloves that
has been smashed; 1-1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger; 4 ounces
wide rice nodules or Pad Thai Noodles that are broken
into 3-inch pieces, today, we're gonna use our Pad Thai
noodles; 2 tablespoons of cornstarch; 2 eggs that are lightly
beaten; 1-1/2 cups of cooked shredded chicken; 3 scallions that
are thinly sliced, that's optional, but of course today, Chef
Lovely, I'm gonna use those green onions. Okay, so let's
get started. First things first. We're gonna take our water.
This is 1-1/2 cups, and we're gonna pour this into
our pot. Now, our pot is already getting nice and
hot for us. Here is our chicken broth. We're gonna
add that in next. So, as you can see, we're
building great layers of flavor with soup. We're also gonna
add in some soy sauce, which is a nice deep
salty flavor that's gonna add the soup, and I have
3 garlic cloves, getting that just simply smash, and I
have also taken off the outer shell here. We're gonna
[unk] this out just a little bit later. So, we're
only interested in getting the nice garlic flavor. And I
also have some ginger here. We're gonna add that in.
We're just gonna have a nice kind of warm bite
to our soup. So, I'm gonna give this a stir,
and we are gonna let this cooked for about 10
minutes, so all of these flavors come together, and then
we'll be ready to add in our other ingredients. So,
in a few minutes, we're gonna come back, and I'm
gonna show you how we're gonna finish this delicious soup.
So, we have our soy mixture in here with our
broth and our water. This has been cooking for about
10 minutes with our garlic cloves. So, as you can
imagine, this is just full of so much delicious and
rich flavor. I have taken our garlic cloves because they
have done their job. It's infused with beautiful garlic flavor
in here. So, now, our next step, we're gonna add
in our noodles here. We're gonna drop those in, [unk]
that. We're gonna give it a quick stir, and we're
gonna let this cook for about 4 minutes. So, it
doesn't take long at all. These noodles are gonna absorb
all that flavor, and it's gonna add a delicious texture
to our soup as well. So, while these are cooking
in our delicious broth here, I have our cornstarch and
our water. So, what we're doing, we're making something called
a slurry. So, by adding these 2 together, it's gonna
thicken up our soup. So, I'm gonna just drop in
a little bit, give it a really good whisk here
with my fork and wanna make sure that it's completely
dissolved because we don't wanna any clumps in our soup
here. Let's go ahead and add the remaining cornstarch. If
you don't have cornstarch, flour is also a substitute that
you can use right at home. You will get the
same results, fantastic. So, there we go. This is done.
So, let me check back over here to my noodles,
give it one more good stir here. Make sure that
they are separated, and that they each have their own
little space to kind of cook here. So, it's nice
to have a really big pot that's gonna really help
cook these noodles even quicker. Okay, so, here's the chef
Lovely tip. Take your time when you're adding in your
slurry here. Corn starch and water has a mind of
it's own. If you add it too quickly, it made
clump on you, and that's not what you want, okay?
So, we're gonna add in a little bit stir, stir,
and then we're gonna go back and do it again.
So, here we go, gonna some in, and we're gonna
give it a nice stir just like that. And right
before your eyes, you're gonna see that our soup is
going to thicken of course. It is gonna be fantastic.
So, here we go, here's little it more, great. So,
I'm gonna keep on stirring again to make sure that
it doesn't cook clump up on us and make sure
that it's very nice and smooth. There we go. The
next thing we're gonna do, we're gonna add in our
beaten eggs. Now, this is the same process that we
just did with out cornstarch and water mixture. We're gonna
slowly add this in, but here's the trick, do not
stop stirring. I want you to continue to move your
wooden spoon in a circular motion so that our egg
is low and cooked in our hot broth, okay? So,
here we go. I'm gonna start stirring first. I'm gonna
get my broth and noodles all moving in the same
direction, and we're gonna go where we slowly pour. Then,
we're gonna add in our eggs, and we're not gonna
stop stirring, okay. So, here we go, here's little more,
take your time with it, keep in stirring just like
that. Sounds hard, but it's actually really, really easy. No,
we're gonna add in our chicken, and this chicken is
all ready cooked, so only thing we're looking to do
is to heat up that chicken. Okay, it gets nice
and more, and last but not the least, we're gonna
add in some scallion, green onions. I'm gonna add half
in and I'm gonna save some for garnish causing our
food to look really good. Let stir some of this
up. Absolutely delicious, warm, comforting, great strong flavors with the
garlic, with ginger, the soy, and we have the light
onion flavor from scallions in here. So, enjoy this bowl
of egg drop soup of chicken and noodles.
What You'll Need
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
- 3 garlic cloves, smashed
- 1- 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 4 ounces wide rice noodles or pad thai noodles, broken into 3-inch pieces
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1- 1/2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
- 3 scallions, thinly sliced (optional)
Step By Step
1
Bring the broth, 1-1/2 cups water, soy sauce, garlic and ginger to a boil over medium-high heat in a medium-size saucepan. Reduce heat to medium and cook broth mixture for 10 minutes.
2
Remove the garlic cloves with a slotted spoon and add noodles to pot; cook for 4 minutes or until tender.
3
Meanwhile, stir together the cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water in a small bowl; whisk into broth and cook for 1 minute or until thickened.
4
Stir the soup so it is moving in a circular direction. Pour in the beaten eggs in a slow, steady stream. Stir in chicken and garnish with scallions, if desired. Serve immediately.
More Recipes
Egg drop soup is usually an appetizer but we made it a main dish by adding shrimp, peas, carrots, and mushrooms.
"A few years ago," Sang Yoon recalls, "I caught a cold and my friend Sal Marino of Il Grano invited me for a bowl of stracciatella alla romana, the Italian soup with egg strands and semolina. I went home and made my own ghetto version with broth from a box, and realized it would taste even better with ginger and spinach."
This classic Asian one-dish recipe is filling enough to be considered a meal and takes less than 30 minutes to prepare.
This soup is often served on birthdays to symbolize wishes for a long life. It's basically an egg drop soup with ham and noodles, and it's absolutely delicious.
