Easy Chinese Egg Drop Soup

Easy homemade Chinese egg drop soup takes under 15 minutes from start to finish. Better than take-out and it’s effortless to make this soup at home. This is by far the fastest soup you’ll ever make.

It’s light, with simple flavors, and an ultimate comfort food.

Originally posted in March 2019, updated with new photos and included video in September 2021

Why you’ll love this soup

1. Also called egg flower soup is easy to make and perfect for cold winter nights.
2. It’s warm, nourishing, and comforting.
3. It’s packed with amazing flavor and texture.
4. A little trick will ensure your egg ribbons are silky. More details below.

What is egg drop soup?

In Chinese, egg drop soup is called Dan Hua Tang (蛋花汤) which means “egg flower” soup.

Egg drop soup is a Chinese soup of wispy beaten eggs poured slowly into boiled chicken broth which is thickened with corn starch. The thickness of the soup helps it create a beautiful silky egg ribbon when poured in a slow thin stream.

You don’t want to have eggs cooking and falling into the boiled broth as tiny bits. Thickness in the boiled broth (due to adding corn starch) helps prevent the egg from dissipating into tiny bits. Creating signature egg ribbons in the broth is the key to a good soup.

Ingredients

1. Chicken broth – for best results use homemade chicken broth. Beef broth works too.
2. Eggs – Use large eggs.
3. Cornstarch – The viscosity of the soup is from cornstarch. It helps thicken the broth and hence gives body to the soup.
4. Green onions – green onions give extra flavor and texture to the soup. It is boiled with the broth to make the broth more flavorful.
5. Ginger – adds warm comforting flavors to the soup.
6. White ground pepper – White pepper is recommended. It adds heat to the soup without changing its color too much.
7. Toasted sesame oil – optional, drizzle a few drops of sesame oil in the broth before boiling and garnish just before serving.
8. Creamed corn – optional. Use canned creamed corn or use homemade creamed corn.

Variations

1. Tofu – to make the soup more nutritious, add tofu cut into small cubes.
2. Chicken – add rotisserie chicken or simply cook boneless chicken cubes with salt and pepper and add it to soup.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Stir together cornstarch and ¼ cup broth. Keep aside.
2. Whisk eggs. Pro-Tip : Add teaspoon of water to beaten eggs to help pour slowly in slow and thin stream.
3. Add broth, the white part of green onions, minced ginger, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, toasted sesame oil, light soy sauce, salt, white pepper, and turmeric powder. Whisk well and bring it to a boil. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes.
4. Reduce flame to low so the broth comes to a gentle boil. Add cornstarch slurry to the soup with constant stirring. Cook with constant stirring for 1 to 2 minutes or until the broth is slightly thickened.
5. Now slowly pour beaten eggs in a thin stream while stirring the soup in swirls. Eggs will spread into ribbons. Pro-Tip: The size and shape of the egg flower will vary. It largely depends on how eggs are poured and how you swirl the soup.
6. Add creamed corn, and stir it together. At this stage, you can add any extra ingredients you like- cooked chicken, tofu. Let it boil for 2 minutes while stirring constantly.
7. Turn off the stove. Stir in green onions into the soup.
8. Just before serving, garnish with more chopped green onions, and cracked pepper, and drizzle toasted sesame oil on top. Serve immediately.

Expert tips

1. Add a teaspoon of water to beaten eggs to help pour slowly in a slow and thin stream.
2. Slowly pour beaten eggs in a thin stream and swirl the soup continuously to help the eggs spread to ribbons. Do not stop swirling the soup. Pouring eggs too fast and not swirling properly will make scrambled bits of eggs instead of silky egg ribbons.
3. Use low-sodium broth and soy sauce to make it healthy-ish.
4. Add extra ingredients like tofu, chicken, egg noodles, or cream corn to make it healthy.

How to make low-sodium chicken broth at home

Here’s how you make homemade broth: remove giblets and neck from whole chicken (use cut pieces of chicken if not using whole chicken). Place whole chicken in a large soup pot. Add in 5 quarts water, 3 bay leaves, 5 whole cloves, 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns, ½ teaspoon red chili flakes, 1-inch ginger, 5 cloves garlic, 3 while onions (roughly chopped), 2 carrots (roughly chopped), 2 celery stalks (roughly chopped), salt to taste.

Bring it to a boil, then cover and simmer for 2-3 hours or even longer. If you want pristine broth, strain it and serve it in freezer bottles.

Variations

Keep it simple or add extra ingredients to make it the way you’d like it. The recipe is so simple and versatile, that it’s too easy to adapt it to your taste.

To make variations of the soup you could do one of the following –

1. Add cooked and shredded chicken to make it protein-rich.
2. For the vegetarian option add small cubes of tofu to the soup.
3. Load it up with vegetables. Sliced zucchini, sliced carrots, celery, and shiitake mushrooms are great choices of vegetables that can be added to the soup. Baby spinach, kale and shiitake or button mushrooms.
4. Chicken or egg noodles are amazing to be added to the soup along with veggies.

Common questions

MORE SOUP RECIPES

Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup

Instant Pot Chicken Noodles Soup

Roasted Cauliflower Soup With Almonds

Roasted Carrot Onion Soup

Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

Sriracha Spicy Ramen Noodles Soup

Thai Pumpkin Soup

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

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5 from 9 votes

📋Easy Homemade Chinese Egg Drop Soup

Jyothi Rajesh

Easy homemade Chinese egg drop soup literally takes under 15 minutes from start to finish. Better than take-out made at home easy and fast. This is by far the fastest soup you’ll ever make

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Course soups, Starters

Cuisine Chinese

Servings 4 servings

Calories 63

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• ▢ 4 whole eggs
• ▢ 4 cups chicken broth low-sodium homemade broth best
• ▢ ⅓ cup white part of green onions
• ▢ ½ teaspoon ginger grated
• ▢ ¼ cup shiitake mushrooms or enoki mushrooms
• ▢ 1.5 tablespoon cornstarch heaped
• ▢ 2 teaspoon soy sauce (light soy sauce)
• ▢ 1 teaspoon white pepper (adjust to taste)
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon turmeric
• ▢ 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil optional
• ▢ ⅓ cup creamed corn optional
• ▢ ¼ cup scallions (green part)

For garnish

• ▢ Scallions
• ▢ Ground pepper
• ▢ Toasted sesame oil

Instructions

 

• Stir together cornstarch and ¼ cup broth. Keep aside.
• Whisk eggs. Pro-Tip : Add teaspoon of water to beaten eggs to help pour slowly in slow and thin stream.
• To a deep bottom soup pan add broth, white part of green onions, minced ginger, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, toasted sesame oil, light soy sauce, salt, white pepper and turmeric powder. Whisk well and bring it to boil. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes.
• Reduce flame to low so the broth comes to gentle boil. Add cornstarch slurry to the soup with constant stirring. Cook with constant stirring to 1 to 2 minutes or until the broth is slightly thickened.
• Now slowly pour beaten eggs in thin stream while stirring the soup in swirls. Eggs will spread into ribbons. Pro-Tip : The size and shape of egg flower will vary. It largely depends on how eggs are poured and how you swirl the soup.
• Add creamed corn, stir it together. At this stage you can add any extra ingredients you like- cooked chicken, tofu. Let it boil for 2 minutes, while stirring constantly.
• Turn off stove. Stir in green onions into the soup.
• Just before serving, garnish with more chopped green onions, cracked pepper and drizzle toasted sesame oil on top. Serve immediately.

Video

Notes

1. Add teaspoon of water to beaten eggs to help pour slowly in slow and thin stream.
2. Slowly pour beaten eggs in thin stream and swirl the soup continuously to help eggs spread to ribbons. Do not stop swirling the soup. Pouring eggs too fast and not swirling properly will make scrambled bits of eggs instead of silky egg ribbons.
3. Use low sodium broth and soy sauce to make it healthy-ish.
4. Add extra ingredients like tofu, chicken, egg noodles or cream corn to make it healthy.

 

Nutritional Info – Please keep in mind that nutritional information provided is only a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on products used.

Nutrition

Calories: 63kcalCarbohydrates: 11gProtein: 2gFat: 2gSaturated Fat: 1gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 4mgSodium: 1093mgPotassium: 296mgFiber: 1gSugar: 1gVitamin A: 171IUVitamin C: 20mgCalcium: 28mgIron: 1mg

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