Egg Drop Soup: Authentic 15-Minute Recipe | The Woks of Life (2024)

FAQs

Why is Chinese egg drop soup so thick? ›

On potato starch

Most egg drop soup recipes use cornstarch as a thickener, but my dad prefers potato starch for a few reasons. First, potato starch thickens liquids while keeping it translucent so you get a clearer soup than with grain-based thickeners such as cornstarch.

So What Is Egg Drop Soup? In case this recipe is new to you, egg drop soup is a staple at Chinese restaurants across the United States. It's typically made with lightly-seasoned chicken or veggie broth, and filled with delicious egg “ribbons”, which are created by whisking raw eggs into the simmering broth.

Egg drop soup is quite healthy. Egg drop soup calories and carbohydrates are low, which makes the dish good for people watching their weight. While the chicken broth and eggs are nutritious, this soup has the drawback of being high in sodium. However, you can reduce the saltiness by making the dish at home.

Egg Drop Soup Recipe Instructions

Stir in the sesame oil, salt, sugar, and white pepper. Add in the turmeric or yellow food coloring, if using. Using turmeric or yellow food coloring gives the soup that rich restaurant-style yellow color but this is optional. Taste the soup, and adjust the seasoning if needed.

Don't let your broth come to a boil. The cornstarch in the mixture will make the soup slimy if it boils.

How to Store Egg Drop Soup. Store your leftover egg drop soup for up to four days in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Reheat on the stove or in the microwave.

It's especially perfect when you're sick and trying to rest up and recover. It takes minimal effort, is soothing on your throat, and actually provides some nutrients to help keep your energy up. Please don't wait to make this until your next head cold, you really need egg drop soup in your life immediately!

A: No, but you may want to have two or three bowls of egg drop soup per day. The eggs it is made with are rich in albumin, a protein that is easily digested and absorbed into the bloodstream. Albumin helps maintain the balance of water in the bloodstream and body tissues.

Do Chinese people eat egg drop soup? ›

In Chinese cuisine, egg drop soups have a thinner consistency than most common Western variants. Depending on the region, they may be garnished with ingredients such as tofu, scallion, bean sprouts and corn.

Egg Drop Soup

Of the soups commonly found on Chinese restaurant menus, egg drop is the healthiest. Totally starving when you walk into a Chinese restaurant? Order soup as an appetizer, and egg drop is tops. "It's really made with eggs, so it does offer quite a bit of protein," says London.

So, yeah: Toss that soup that sat out overnight. Now, to the question of whether or not boiling it will kill off these bugs -- that might be technically true, but it comes with a big caveat. To be completely safe, you'll have to boil the soup vigorously for 10 minutes.

The best side dishes to serve with Egg Drop Soup are beef and broccoli, garlic bread, ham and cheese pinwheels, twice baked potatoes, potstickers, shrimp pad Thai, fried rice, mango Kani salad, bok choy, Peking duck pancakes, chicken satay, Asian slaw, spring rolls, teriyaki chicken wings, stir-fried noodles, and ...

Thicken with cornstarch (add more cornstarch if you like it nice and thick as we do). Stir broth while simmering in clockwise directions. Add beaten eggs (I use 6 eggs for 4 or 5 cups broth) in slow steady stream and let cook undisturbed (important) until cooked (about a minute or so).

In Cantonese imperial courts, egg drop soup was used as a way to showcase a chef's finesse: the fine swirl of eggs, when done right, was meant to mimic the gelatinous texture of a clear stock fortified with rooster and Jinhua ham.

Much like French food, which relies on a roux for a perfect bechamel sauce or beef bourguignon and involves butter cooked with flour, Chinese and Cantonese cuisines use cornstarch to thicken sauces. However, it's predominantly added at the end of the cooking process rather than at the start.

To make a thick Chinese soup, all of the ingredients required tend to be added into a pan at once and cooked slowly, allowing the flavours to infuse each other. The soup is further thickened by adding in a thickener such as tapioca starch or cornstarch.

The soup is thickened slightly using cornstarch/cornflour – I love how the glossy broth coats the ingredients when you scoop it up! The spiciness comes from finely chopped dried chillies. Red pepper / chilli flakes are a perfect substitute.