Easy and healthy Greek lemon chicken soup (Avgolemono) with Israeli couscous, chives, lemon zest, feta cheese, and red pepper flakes is full of flavor and absolutely delicious.
I just love soups all year around. If you enjoy soups as much as I do, you might like to try our Sausage Potato Soup, Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup, Pasta Soup and Chicken Noodle Soup with homemade noodles.
I love flavorful soups that warm you up and leave you with a well nourished feeling, like this Greek lemon chicken soup.
If you’ve been following along, you know how much I love dishes that utilize multiple textures. In this soup, the sweet yellow onions, sliced thin, combined with the shredded chicken breast, red pepper flakes, lemon zest, soft pillowy Israeli couscous, crumbled feta cheese, and chopped chives is absolutely divine.
This is a keeper. LOVE this soup SO MUCH.
Tips for this Lemon Chicken Soup Greek style:
- If you enjoy the heat in your chicken soups, you can double the red pepper flakes measurement.
- Be sure to follow the instructions to quarter the sweet yellow onion, then cut into long thin slices, rather than chopping. This long thin slices of onion really add to the texture and taste of this incredibly delicious soup.
- To shred your chicken, try using your stand mixer. After you have cooked the chicken, remove the breasts with tongs and place in the mixer. You really only need to mix on medium high for about 30 seconds. If you’re not up for the mixer method, using two long pronged forks to pull apart the cooked chicken breasts will work just as well.
- If you’d like to lemon chicken soup with orzo instead of the couscous, it should work just as well. Just swap the one cup of Israeli couscous for one cup of orzo. We really enjoyed the size of the Israeli couscous with this soup.
- You could also make this into a lemon chicken noodle soup by swapping the couscous with egg noodles.
- Lemon chicken soup with rice would work as well. You would want to add in 2 cups of already cooked rice at the point in the recipe where you add in the couscous.
- You could change this into a lemon chicken soup with spinach as well. Just add in 5 cups of baby spinach at the point where you add in the Israeli couscous.
I hope you enjoy this easy lemon chicken soup recipe, Avgolemono, as much as we did!
Below is a quick video of how to shred chicken in a stand mixer. Very quick and easy. Big timesaver. Gotta love it.
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Greek Lemon Chicken Soup
Ingredients
- 10 cups chicken broth
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 8 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 sweet onion
- 1 large lemon, zested
- 1 cup israeli coucous
- 1 1/2 lb boneless chicken breasts
- 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 2 oz crumbled feta cheese
- 1/3 cup chopped chives
Instructions
Over medium low heat, pour olive oil in dutch oven. Peel onion. Cut onion in quarters and slice into thin strips.
Saute onion and minced garlic in hot olive oil for about 3-4 minutes, until softened.
Add the chicken broth, chicken breasts, lemon zest and crushed red peppers to the dutch oven. Turn heat up to high, cover, and bring to boiling. Once mixture is boiling, turn heat down to medium and simmer for 5 minutes.
Take cover off, and stir in the Israeli (pearl) couscous, salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes, then turn the heat off, and let the couscous mixture sit.
Remove the chicken breasts from the dutch oven, and shred with two long pronged forks or place chicken breasts in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment and mix for 30 seconds or until chicken is fully shredded.
Place shredded chicken back in the dutch oven, and stir. Add in feta cheese and chives and stir. Serve immediately and enjoy!!
Recipe Notes
Adapted from A Spicy Perspective
Easy and delicious! The thin cut onions seemed like noodles. I liked the simplicity of placing raw chicken breast in broth to cook and then shredding. It was perfectly cooked, not dried out at all. Great tasting! I did add carrots and celery, not a necessity, just for color. Definitely a keeper!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! You’re reminding me how much I love this recipe too, I haven’t made it in awhile. I think this will be our dinner for tomorrow night – with this shelter in place order, soups and stews are so soothing.
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