Soups
Creamy Vegan Greek Lemon Rice Soup (Avgolemono)
Prep
15 minutes
Cook
40 minutes
Yield
4 -5
My favorite Greek soup (avgolemono) has turned vegan and it’s one of my favs. This Greek Lemon Rice Soup is super creamy, authentic, easy, and can be whipped up in one pot. I promise you’ll love this one. Andrew loves the traditional non-vegan version of this soup, so I’ll make it for him on occasion when we have eggs.
I teamed up with Lundberg Family Farms to share this authentic and easy recipe for my Greek Lemon Rice Soup aka avgolemono because it’s seriously one of my favs that reminds me of home and growing up. Most people will opt for brown pasta for recipes like this or no carbs, but the rice I find really makes it creamy, warming, and hearty. Perfect as we head into fall.
Ingredient Notes:
Avgolemono: This soup is traditionally called avgolemono and what really turns it from a soup to this magical dish is the combination of tahini, miso pasta, lemon juice, and stock from the soup. Oh baby the flavors are magic!
Nutritional Yeast: Aka nooch is a deactivated yeast and is sold in the form of yellow flakes or powder. It has a savory, cheesy flavor to it and it’s so dang good for you so it’s perfect to add into recipes like this, or use as a garnish on any dish.
Carrots: The carrots and celery in this dish form the delectable base of the soup. They also add great health benefits as they’re a good source of beta carotene, fiber, vitamin K1, potassium, and antioxidants.
How do you make lemon rice soup?
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!
Expert Tips & FAQ:
Flavors: The flavors of this avgolemono soup are perfect in my opinion because the lemon really ties everything together and allows more room for spicy heat from the black pepper to shine through. The creaminess from the rice and miso really marries the soup while the miso and nutritional yeast add a certain earthiness and warmth. All in all, this soup is loaded with flavors that are well-balanced, and it’s super creamy. Plus, an easy-to-make-in instant soup is always a go-to.
Seasoning: I love adding loads of pepper, so I went with about 1 tsp!
Herbs: Dill is my preference but I did not have any left in my fridge!
Other soup recipes you’ll love:
Creamy Vegan Greek Lemon Rice Soup (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!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
What dishes remind you of your childhood? Share below!
This soup is amazing! We are sheltering in place and I am raiding the cupboards, pantry and freezer to use up what we have. With a couple of minor substitutions I made your delicious soup, served with a Greek village salad and baked some frozen spanakopita appetizers to go with. My husband says we have never eaten better 🙂
Thank you for the wonderful recipe. It is definitely going into the rotation.
THIS MAKES ME SMILE FROM EAR TO EAR! Thanks my love!
absolutely LOVED this soup. my mom used to make a similar soup when i was little and i haven’t had it in years. this recipe was perfect. i’ll definitely be making it again soon!
This makes me so happy, thanks for the love!
This soup was delicious and not like anything I had tasted before! I was really looking forward to the left overs but there wasn’t any!
haha make a double batch next time!
Unbelievably delicious & comforting!
This soup is the real winner!
Obsessed with this recipe!!! I’ve made it a few times – the first time as is, and the second and third time I’ve added lots of extra veggies and greens. It’s so tasty every way and gets devoured in my house. The miso/tahini/lemon mixture is everything and makes it so creamy!!
THIS MAKES ME SO DAMN HAPPY!
I can’t wait to try this! Has anyone tried it with cauliflower rice? I might try it to keep it Paleo. Thanks!
I feel like it would work perfectly fine!
This soup is so easy to make and delicious! Our family of 6 loved it, each and every one 🙂 even the toddler
YESS!! It makes me so happy when even the toddler is obsessed!
LOVE LOVE LOVE this soup!! I have made it two times now in the last week because it’s that good. I went with wild rice and added some Gardein chick’n to add some extra protein and wow, so cozy and filling. Can’t wait to try more of your recipes!
YASSS!!! Damn, it looked so good too babes. Thanks for the love and support!
This 👏🏽 Soup 👏🏽 Is 👏🏽 all 👏🏽 I 👏🏽 need. I actually switched the rice up for potatoes and chickpeas cause I’ve been eating waaaaaay too much rice lately…. fanfeckentastic!!!!!!! Your recipes are leggit Maria ❤️
OOOO, Lisa, I love this idea! Thanks for the tip! I am so grateful are you loving my recipes hun!
I did everything wrong and it still turned out perfectly! I accidentally put the miso in with the NY at the beginning – whatever. I didn’t have any pepper (I know) so I hit it with a dash of chili flakes before brothing. I used veg broth in a box, brown basmati rice, and for the sauce I used one whole Meyer lemon and one whole regular lemon (juice & zest of both – I am extremely lemon oriented). My tahini turned out to be three years old and smelled like a boot, so I threw it out and used a scoop of homemade cashew butter and some olive oil. Blendered with lemon – I am going to use that as a salad dressing (or beverage) in the future because it is ridiculously delicious. I also used an entire bunch of dill because dill is bae. As everyone else said, this soup is the best.
[How does miso + nooch + veg broth taste exactly like chicken broth?? If I hadn’t made this myself I’d say someone accidentally put chicken in it.]
Also – a Maria wrote it so you KNOW it’s gonna be good <3
Maria, this is hands down my favourite comment on my blog to date. HAHAH!! This is amazing. Love the dressing. Love the boot. Love the dill. Love MARIA!
Thanks gir!! Love the SOOP
You’re so weolcome!
I had to stop myself from drinking the Avgolemono straight. INSANELY DELICIOUS!! Thank you for reintroducing me to dill! Such an amazing flavor!! Looking forward to making again!
This soup is so good! Hot tip, add more liquid if you notice the rice drinking it up too fast!
This soup was so interesting and delicious! Power punch of some of my favourite vitamin filled ingredients too! Perfect for a winter cold. Thank you!
I love this soup so much!!