Easy 3-Ingredient Vegetarian Egg Drop Soup (also known as egg flower soup) is a quick and simple soup with smooth streams of beaten egg mixed throughout.
This recipe brings a vegetarian version of the classic Chinese-American takeout to your table in less time than it takes for delivery!
It is a basic and customizable recipe, so feel free to add green onion, pepper, or sesame oil to suit your taste.
Plus, if you use kosher “parve chicken consommé,” this soup is kosher!
Egg drop soup is a delicious and flavorful hot soup.
Beaten egg is dropped in and mixed, which allows for the formation of smooth streams of egg throughout.
You can stir quickly for thin ribbons or mix less if you prefer larger “blooms” of egg (which is the reason for the other name for this soup: egg flower soup).
In traditional Chinese cuisine, egg drop soup is commonly thinner than the Chinese-American version, which includes cornstarch as a thickener.
So, if you prefer the thinner version, you can just leave out the starch.
Not only is this soup delicious, but eggs have nutritional benefits.
A little about eggs
For many years eggs were considered a source of high cholesterol and a possible cause of heart disease, and people were warned against them and recommended to have only a few per week in their diets.
It is true that one large egg yolk has 200 mg of cholesterol. However, the additional nutrients that eggs contain may actually help LOWER the risk of heart disease by raising the “good” cholesterol in one’s body.
Eggs are high in protein and filling but low in calories. They have nutritional value and contain a large variety of vitamins as well as some antioxidants.
The color of the yolk depends on the diet of the hen, and different types of chickens may lay different colored eggs; white or brownish.
Egg white consists primarily of approximately 90 percent water and contains almost no fat or carbohydrates.
The yolk of a new egg is firm, but then it absorbs water from the egg white, which causes it to increase in size and become loose.
You may be surprised to know that raw egg white is sometimes used in the preparation of vaccines.
Many people believe that since eggs are found in the refrigerated section of the supermarket, and very frequently near the dairy section, they are also dairy.
Nonetheless, eggs are NOT DAIRY. You CANNOT milk a chicken!
A little about Chinese-American Food
Chinese-American cuisine is a style of Chinese cuisine that was developed by Chinese immigrants. These dishes significantly differ from traditional Chinese dishes because Chinese-American dishes were adapted to suit American tastes.
Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in large numbers in the mid-19th century in order to escape the economic difficulties in China, hoping to find work during the California Gold Rush and on the Central Pacific Railroad.
They mostly settled together in ghettos, individually known as Chinatown, and—since there were laws preventing them from owning their own land—they opened their own businesses, such as laundry services and restaurants.
Initially, the family-owned businesses catered to miners and railroad workers, and restaurants were set up in places where Chinese food was unknown. Food was based on the requests of the customers, and recipes were created to suit American tastes using whatever ingredients were available.
One major difference between traditional Chinese cuisine and Chinese-American cuisine is in the use of vegetables. Chinese-American recipes will use raw or uncooked ingredients and those not native to China. Traditional Chinese cuisine, on the other hand, rarely contains raw or uncooked ingredients and often uses Asian leaf vegetables.
While the new dishes were not traditional Chinese, these restaurants were responsible for the development of the ever-popular Chinese-American cuisine.
The little history of kosher Chinese-American Food
It is well known that Jews (especially those with ties to New York) love Chinese food.
Jews as a group were probably first introduced to Chinese food in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where immigrants of various cultures settled in their own neighborhoods in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
By the early 1900s, approximately one million Jews from Eastern Europe lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan as did only approximately 7,000 Cantonese Chinese, most of whom had moved from California after the gold-rush.
Due to anti-Chinese laws and acts, which prevented them from competing with whites, many Chinese opened restaurants to support themselves and their families, and they moved the businesses with them as they moved across the country.
As many of the Jewish immigrants began to assimilate and eat non-kosher, at least out of the house, they began to frequent the Chinese restaurants. Sunday was a favorite time for eating out for them, and Chinese food was not only reasonably priced, but those restaurants were open on Sundays.
Jews who continued keeping kosher both in and out of the house, didn’t get to enjoy the delicious Chinese dishes until Sol Bernstein, a creative, Jewish, kosher deli owner found a solution.
Using Cantonese Chinese recipes and substituting kosher veal, beef, and chicken livers for pork, he began selling the first kosher Chinese food, which became very popular.
Sol continued to sell deli while he incorporated Chinese foods into the menu and did very well. The restaurant continued to prosper until he died in 1992, when it was sold.
While there are Chinese-American restaurants and takeout places all over, they are harder to find and often quite expensive if you keep kosher or otherwise don’t eat pork or shellfish.
However, the solution to that is to make them at home! So, try these homemade takeout recipes:
- Kosher Beef and Broccoli
- Kosher Chicken and Broccoli
- Kosher Pepper Steak
- Kosher Mongolian Beef
- Kosher Corned Beef & Cabbage Egg Rolls
- Kosher Chicken Lo Mein
- Kosher Beef Lo Mein
- Kosher General Tso’s Chicken
- Kosher Mongolian Chicken
- Vegetarian Fried Rice
- Kosher Chicken Chow Mein
- Kosher Beef Chow Mein
Easy 3-ingredient Vegetarian Egg Drop Soup
Delicious, quick, and easy vegetarian soup with streams of egg.
Ingredients
- 3-4 tablespoons vegetarian chicken consommé powder or to taste
- 3 eggs
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch (do not add if you prefer the thinner version)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric or a little yellow food coloring to get a more yellow color (optional)
- 4 cups water
Instructions
- Boil water in a pot.
- Add 3 tablespoons consommé powder slowly and mix well to ensure there are no lumps (taste to see if you need more and add as desired).
- Lower flame to medium.
- Add turmeric or yellow food coloring if so desired.
- Pour cornstartch into a bowl and add some soup (1/4 cup or so). Mix well.
- Pour back into soup and mix.
- Beat the eggs and slowly pour into boiling broth as you mix.
- Simmer for a few minutes and remove from heat.
Notes
* Skip steps 4 and 5 if you are not adding cornstarch.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 96Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 147mgSodium: 69mgCarbohydrates: 6gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 7g