Soups
Vegan Avgolemono
Prep
15 minutes
Cook
40 minutes
Yield
4 -5
🍋 Transform the classic Greek egg-lemon soup into a creamy vegan delight with this authentic Vegan Avgolemono recipe. Featuring tangy lemon, hearty rice, and a silky tahini-miso base, this one-pot wonder delivers all the traditional flavors without any animal products.
My favorite Greek soup (avgolemono) has turned vegan, and it’s one of my absolute favorites. This vegan avgolemono is super creamy, authentic, easy, and can be whipped up in one pot. The creamy lemon-rice combination creates a comforting dish that brings me right back to my Greek roots.
I teamed up with Lundberg Family Farms to share this authentic and easy recipe because it’s seriously one of my favorites. It reminds me of home and growing up. The rice really makes it creamy, warming, and hearty—perfect for a satisfying meal any time of year.
❤️ Why You’ll Love Vegan Avgolemono
- Authentic: All the flavors of traditional Greek avgolemono soup are made completely plant-based.
- One-Pot Wonder: Everything comes together in a single pot for easy cleanup.
- Dairy-free: The combination of rice, tahini, and miso creates a luxurious texture.
🍲 Ingredients
Avgolemono Base – This soup is traditionally called avgolemono, but what really transforms it from a basic soup to this magical dish is the combination of tahini, miso paste, lemon juice, and stock. These ingredients replace the traditional egg-lemon mixture while maintaining the signature creamy, tangy profile that makes this Greek classic so beloved.
Nutritional Yeast – Also known as “nooch,” this deactivated yeast sold in the form of yellow flakes or powder brings a savory, almost cheesy flavor to the soup. It’s packed with B vitamins and protein, making it both delicious and nutritious – the perfect addition to this vegan avgolemono soup.
👩🍳 How to Make Vegan Avgolemono
1. Into a large stock pot add your olive oil, onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Cook on low heat for 10 minutes, make sure to stir occasionally to avoid any browning or burning. You don’t want the vegetables to develop any color, just want them translucent and soft.
2. Once your veggies have cooked down for 10 minutes you can add your veg stock cubes, water, nutritional yeast and tamari or soy sauce.
3. Bring this mixture to a boil, lower heat and add your rice. Cook for around 20 minutes with lid on or until your rice is cooked.
4. While your soup is cooking prepare your Miso Tahini Lemon Sauce simply by adding all your ingredients into a blender and blending till smooth. NOTE: let your stock from soup cool for a few minutes before adding to the blender with other ingredients.
6. If your rice is ready you can remove the pot from the heat and begin stirring in your lemon sauce. Continue stirring till well combined. Add your fresh dill or parsley and stir just once more.
7. Give your soup a little taste test then add the necessary seasoning. Enjoy hot with more fresh parsley or dill!
🗒 Tips and Tricks
- Vegetables: For the best flavor, cook onions, carrots, and celery on low heat just until soft, not browned.
- Rice: Use a short-grain variety for the creamiest texture in your avgolemono.
- Blending: Let stock cool slightly before blending with tahini and miso to prevent separation.
🗒 Substitutions
- Rice: Brown rice can replace white for added nutrition (allow extra cooking time).
- Herbs: Fresh parsley works well if dill isn’t available.
- Protein: Add chickpeas or white beans for a heartier vegan avgolemono soup.
- Miso: If unavailable, use additional nutritional yeast and a touch more salt.
🗒 Best served with
- Twist Bread (with Pesto & Parmesan)
- Cauliflower Pizza Crust with Arugula Salad Topper
- Easy & Authentic Greek Salad Recipe
👝 How to Store Leftovers
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
🤔 Common Questions
Traditional avgolemono gets its creaminess from an egg-lemon mixture. This vegan version uses tahini and miso to create the same silky texture and rich flavor while maintaining the signature tangy lemon profile.
While orzo is sometimes used in avgolemono, rice creates a creamier texture as it releases starch during cooking. This helps achieve that authentic velvety consistency in the vegan version.
Yes! The flavors actually improve after a day in the refrigerator. The rice may absorb more liquid, so you might need to add a splash of broth when reheating.
Yes, this vegan avgolemono is naturally gluten-free as long as you use gluten-free vegetable stock and tamari instead of soy sauce.
The key is to let your hot stock cool slightly before blending with the tahini and lemon. Then add the mixture back to the soup off the heat, stirring constantly.
Vegan Avgolemono
Your Greek mommy that is. 😍 Step into my kitchen to learn how to make yummy Greek food. 🍽️💃
Ingredients
For the Soup:
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 1/2 cups sweet white onion finely chopped
- 1 cup celery stalk finely chopped (optional)
- 1 1/2 cups carrot finely chopped or cut into 1/2 inch rounds (optional)
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 2 vegetable stock cubes (or 2 tbsp vegetable stock paste) organic, no added salt
- 6-7 cups hot water
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
- 3/4 -1 cup uncooked Brown Jasmine Rice – Lundberg Farms or other rice of your choice (i.e. basmati)
- season to taste
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley or dill finely chopped
For the Avgolemono:
- 2 tbsp. tahini
- 2 tbsp white miso paste
- 3/4 cup lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 2 cups stock from soup
Garnish:
Instructions
- Into a large stock pot add your olive oil, onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Cook on low heat for 10 minutes, make sure to stir occasionally to avoid any browning or burning. You don’t want the vegetables to develop any colour, just want them translucent and soft.
- Once your veggies have cooked down for 10 minutes you can add your veg stock cubes, water, nutritional yeast and tamari or soy sauce.
- Bring this mixture to a boil, lower heat and add your rice. Cook for around 20 minutes with lid on or until your rice is cooked.
- While your soup is cooking prepare your Miso Tahini Lemon Sauce simply by adding all your ingredients into a blender (2 cups of stock from the soup – avoid scooping out rice, tahini, white miso & lemon juice) and blending till smooth. NOTE: let your stock from soup cool for a few minutes in the blender before blending with other ingredients.
- Remove pot from the heat once it's ready and begin stirring in your lemon sauce. Continue stirring till well combined. Add your fresh dill or parsley and stir just once more.
- Give your soup a little taste test then add necessary seasoning. Enjoy hot with more fresh parsley or dill!
My new favourite soup! I have been keeping my eyes peeled for a vegan version of this soup and this did not disappoint. I had everything for this except for the miso, but my SIL came through and lent me some – the miso makes all the difference! That salty umami comes through wonderfully and ties it all together. I’ll definitely be making this for friends and family. It’s also great leftover, when the rice absorbs all the flavours and the texture changes.
YESSS!! this makes me so happy! Thanks for the love beauty. So glad you enjoyed it and made sure to use the Miso!
This soup is so yummy and refreshing! It’s really easy to make and the different flavors along with the dill are amazing.
Thank you so much for the love Emily. So glad you enjoyed this recipe! It’s one of our favourites.
Did you mean 3/4 to 1 cup of rice, or 1 AND 3/4 cup rice?
Hello! I meant 3/4 to 1 cup of rice can be used. Typically when “-” is used in my recipes it just means it can be that or anything in between!
Maria x
I really love this soup! As soon as I saw it on Maria’s Instagram I knew I had to try it. It’s a nice combo of refreshing and comforting. Somehow still works as a fall soup, and probably a winter soup, and spring soup… (you get the idea)
Will be adding to my rotation for sure.
YESSS!!! Thank you so much for the Love Elizabeth!!! I love this soup sooo soo much.
I saw this recipe on Instagram and was instantly drawn to the beautiful photos. The asian ingredients in a classic greek dish intrigued me even more! I LOVE lemon flavored everything and knew this soup was a must try. The recipe was super easy to follow and took less than an hour to make. There was so much umami and depth to such a light noted soup. I can’t wait to make it again 🙂
Forgot to rate– 5 stars!
Thank you so much for the love Jessica!
Hello! Question – is the 2 cups of ‘ stock from soup’ that goes into the lemon sauce the same liquid that the rice is cooking in? Should I reserve it before adding rice? This looks so good, I can’t wait to try it!
It’s the soup mixture where everything else is cooking, yes!
Maria x
What can you use if you don’t have white miso paste?
This ingredient is pretty crucial… is there anyway you can get access to it? If not, try using a bit more Tahini! That should do the trick!
So so glad you loved this recipe as much as we did! It’s seriously the best.
Just made this Lemon Soup 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 Will make again… even better a day or two later!
Thank yu so much Robin! I love this soup so much. Glad you do too!
Looks delicious! Do you think it would freeze well?
I think so! I would maybe freeze the rice separate from the soup? There’s no harm in trying but if I am being completely honest there is never any left after I make it so I have never frozen it!
Maria x
Loved this so so much, was easy to make and tastes so well rounded that I couldn’t tell that it wasn’t chicken stock. I put a whole lemon and a lot of chilli flakes which made it even more perfect. Thanks so much for sharing this, Maria!
Hey Claire!! You’re so welcome. You did the right thing by adding loads of lemon, always a game changer!!! So glad you liked it!
This recipe is fantastic! Full of flavor, very satisfying.
The one thing I’ll offer is that if you do not intend to eat it all right away, I’d keep the rice separately. My rice ended up absorbing all the moisture and it was more like a thick rice stew. Still delicious though!
Yes, this always happens! That is actually how some Greeks love eating it afterwards but this is a great type for anyone who may not like it that way!!!
Maria xxx
Every Greek kid ate this on repeat growing up. I made this today and shared it with my folks who LOVED it! That to me is the ultimate test, and this vegan version of Avgolemono passed with flying colours! Well done on capturing love in a bowl Maria xx
Thank you so much for the love Katerina!!!! So glad you to hear that not only you loved it but your parents did too!
I absolutely love all things lemon and tahini so I wanted to give this a try. I have to admit, I’ve never had the original soup, but I love most Greek foods and figured it would be a winner. I was not wrong!
The only thing I changed was using wild rice instead of brown rice, but that’s merely because I prefer the texture of wild rice in soup.
I had some leftovers and the next day I was figuring out what to do with one lone Beyond Meat sausage that was left and decided to add it into the soup and it was a great addition. This soup is so light and lemony that it’s really versatile and is making its way into a standard recipe rotation
Hey Ashley!!!! So glad you loved this recipe. It’s one of my favourites!!! Thanks for sharing your add-ins, the BM sounds brilliant for the next day!
This was really good. I didn’t have carrots, celery or fresh herbs but it still turned out great. I added extra garlic, used 1.5 lemons, dried dill, and added a can of drained jackfruit (in brine) that I shredded up with forks. It makes it a little heartier and almost turns it into a chicken, lemon, rice soup. Looking forward to the leftovers tomorrow! Thanks for this recipe!
YESSS!! thank you so much for the love, Claire. Love the modifications as well!
I used to love this when I visited my godmother (adult convert to Orthodoxy) but forgot to ask her for the recipe. Her version was vegan as well. I’m so glad this recipe exists. This is a wonderful soup and something I can make on weekends during Great Lent. I’ve tried other recipes for vegan avgolemono soup, but this is the closest to my godmother’s version. Ευχαριστώ!
You’re so welcome!!
This recipe was absolutely delicious and less than 45 minutes to make!! It was light, yet flavorful and filling with the lemon and tahini sauce. The only thing I changed was using a vegetable broth over the bouillon cubes. Next time I will add a white bean for added vegan protein but this recipe was such a tasty surprise and my new favorite healthy recipe for the winter! Thank you for sharing Maria!
Thank you so much, Suz!!!!