Making homemade Egg Drop Soup is one of the easiest ways to get a nourishing dinner on the table FAST! This recipe takes 15 minutes – start to finish(!) – and doesn’t require any sautéing anything. The only thing you’ll need to slice up are some green onions. And it’s colored yellow naturally with the addition of turmeric – no yellow food dye here!
This version of egg drop soup is incredibly simple, and has corn added to it for some high-fiber carbs, hearty bulk, and bright yellow color to complement the eggs.
Speaking of the bright yellow color! I love using turmeric to color this egg drop soup naturally. Some restaurants use yellow food dye to make this happen – I prefer coloring foods naturally when I can (plus, the turmeric adds a nice subtle peppery note to the soup).
The other thing I love about this recipe? You skip the step of sautéing ANYTHING. Just heat up some spices and ingredients directly in the broth, stir in the remaining ingredients, and enjoy!
And it’s easy to adapt this egg drop soup to be vegetarian, or omit some of the ingredients if you don’t have them on hand. Let’s get to it!
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Eggs
- Chicken broth – or vegetable broth.
- Green onions
- Fresh ginger – or powdered ginger, see more on how to mince fresh ginger below.
- Frozen corn – or fresh from 1-2 cobs, this is optional and can be omitted if you like.
- Corn starch – for thickening the soup. Another thickener like arrowroot powder can be used.
- Garlic powder – I find powder is best because you don’t sauté it first, which would make the flavor of fresh garlic more subtle, but feel free to try fresh minced garlic if you love fresh garlic!
- White pepper – optional, but gives it a nice subtle kick.
- Turmeric – optional, but gives it a beautiful yellow color naturally and a subtle peppery flavor.
- Toasted sesame oil – optional, but definitely recommended. Adds a deep nutty, toasty, and smoky flavor to the soup.
How to make Homemade Egg Drop Soup
First, bring the broth, frozen corn, minced fresh ginger, and light green and white parts of the green onions to a boil. While it’s heating, mix the cornstarch, salt, garlic powder, white pepper, and turmeric together in a bowl with a little water to make a slurry.
Add the slurry to the soup and heat until it’s thickened. Beat the eggs, preferably in a measuring cup with a spout for easy pouring. Stir the eggs into the soup while slowly pouring the egg mixture and stirring the soup with a spoon – this will create “ribbons” of eggs.
Finally, turn off the heat, add most of the dark green parts of the onions (save the rest to garnish each bowl) and a little toasted sesame oil. All done! Wasn’t that easy?
How to make Egg Drop Soup vegetarian
Just swap out the chicken broth for vegetable broth and you’re good to go!
Can I make Egg Drop Soup vegan?
I’ve never tried it, but it seems you can use a vegan egg replacer in egg drop soup. Check out this recipe for vegan egg drop soup for more.
What’s the easiest way to mince fresh ginger?
I have the best trick for this! Peel it, freeze it, then use a microplane zester to grate the ginger. It’s easier to grate when it’s frozen (no annoying stringy parts to deal with) and the ginger will last for months!
How to make THICK Egg Drop Soup
This recipe is already pretty thick, but if you like REALLY thick egg drop soup, just add more cornstarch to the slurry. You can also make it as is, and then make an extra cornstarch slurry after it’s all heated up and thickened and stir it in until it’s thickened to your liking. Keep in mind; adding the eggs will also add thickness to the soup.
How to make Egg Drop Soup in your microwave
If you want a fast single or double serving of this egg drop soup, you don’t even need to get a pot dirty! This soup lends itself very well to microwave cooking, since there is no sautéing anything.
Just whisk together 1 cup of chicken broth, 2 teaspoons cornstarch, 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, the white parts of one green onion, a pinch of each of the spices – garlic powder, white pepper, salt, and turmeric – in a good-sized microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high until very hot (about 2-3 minutes), then remove and stir in 1-2 beaten eggs. The eggs should cook on their own if the liquid is hot enough, but if they don’t, just stick it back in the microwave for 30 more seconds or so. Then, stir in a little bit of toasted sesame oil and some green onion parts, and you’re ready to go!
I’m actually a bit in love with cooking eggs in the microwave – check out this easy microwave quiche in a mug!
How to make egg drop soup yellow naturally
As mentioned above, adding turmeric will add a natural yellow color and subtle peppery note to the soup. You can use more if you like for a more vibrant color. Ground saffron may also work to impart a nice yellow color, though it’s more expensive than turmeric and I don’t think the flavor would come through as well.
I also almost always use eggs from pasture-raised chickens, which have a more vibrant bright yellow yolk. This can help with the overall color of the soup as well.
Other Chinese- inspired recipes
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Homemade Egg Drop Soup
Ingredients
- 4 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth for vegetarian
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger minced (or 1 teaspoon ground ginger, see notes)
- 3 green onions thinly sliced, white and green parts separated
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 2 tablespoons corn starch (or 3 tablespoons for extra-thick)
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt plus more if needed
- ¼ teaspoon white pepper (optional, for a slightly spicy flavor)
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric (optional, for color and peppery flavor)
- ¼ cup water
- 6 eggs
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil (plus more for garnish, if desired)
Instructions
- Heat chicken stock (4 cups), minced ginger (1 tablespoon), white and light green parts of the green onions, and frozen corn (1 cup) in a large pot over high heat until just boiling, then turn heat to low.
- In a separate small cup or bowl, mix ¼ cup of water with the cornstarch (2 tablespoons), garlic powder (1 teaspoon), salt (¼ teaspoon), white pepper, if using (¼ teaspoon), and turmeric, if using (¼ teaspoon) until smooth and no lumps remain. Stir mixture into the soup and continue heating on low until thickened.
- In a small bowl or glass measuring cup (preferably with a pouring spout), beat the eggs (6).
- Stir the hot broth to create a slow swirl. While you are stirring and the broth is swirling, SLOWLY pour in the eggs. If using a bowl without a pour spout, place two chopsticks or the tines of a fork over the rim of the bowl as you pour to separate the egg and gently add it to the soup to create nice egg ribbons. After a few seconds, you can break the eggs up as necessary with a spoon.
- Turn off the heat. Stir in most of the dark green parts of the green onions and the toasted sesame oil, reserving some to garnish each bowl. Taste and add more salt if needed. Serve.
Notes
- For the ginger: I love to peel fresh ginger and freeze it. Then, when I need to use it for a recipe like this, I use a microplane zester to grate it. It’s easier to grate when it’s frozen and it lasts for so long like this! You can use a microplane zester or small grater to mince fresh ginger unfrozen as well, or just mince it with a knife into very small pieces.
- The bright yellow color is achieved naturally in this recipe with turmeric. Restaurant-style egg drop soup often uses yellow food dye to achieve that color. You can get a brighter yellow color naturally by adding more turmeric, and using pasture-raised eggs (which have a brighter yellow yolk).
- If you have extra egg whites leftover from baking feel free to use them up in this soup in place of one or two of the eggs!
- For a vegetarian version, be sure to use vegetable broth instead of chicken.
- For a low-carb version, omit the corn.
- You may need more salt depending on how much is in the broth you use – taste and adjust as needed.
Nutrition
Nutrition Information Disclaimer
The provided nutrition information is my best estimate and reflects one serving of the recipe (total servings indicated at top of recipe card). It does not include any added sodium from seasoning to taste, any optional ingredients, and it does not take brands into account. I use an automatic API to calculate this information. Feel free to calculate it yourself using one of these tools:
This post originally appeared on Bowl of Delicious on January 28, 2015. It has been republished with new photos, improved recipe instructions, and more pertinent information.
Waluya Dimas
Usually I made the just water ginger and diced tomatoes as the base stock.After the same procen I added baby spinach, few drop of sesame oil. It’s so refreshing.
Elizabeth Lindemann
Yum! Sounds super simple and yummy!
Jamie Pesek
Just made this soup according to the recipe provided but instead of corn i added water chestnuts and and about 1/2 cup of frozen peas. Absolutely amazing!! I will be making this again and again!! Thank you!!
Elizabeth Lindemann
SO glad you liked it!
Polly
I make this soup almost daily, I do agree with using sesame oil without it, it seems like something is missing. I use 1/2 teaspoon of Chili Garlic per serving. Thanks for your recipes!
Elizabeth Lindemann
Aw, this makes me so happy! So glad you like it, and love the chili garlic suggestion. I’m going to try that next time.
Amanda
This was delicious! I’d recommend using creamed corn instead of fresh corn for a sweeter flavour, but overall I loved this recipe and will definitely make it again! Thank you for a great recipe.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it, and thanks for the suggestion to use creamed corn!
Lori N
This is excellent. I used to make this years ago when I was single but never looked it up (pre-smart phones days). So I didn’t use cornstarch and it was okay but watery. I couldn’t decide if I like the thicker texture at restaurants but now I will do it. Turmeric was a good suggestion and I didn’t know about content, ad insertability, etc that was nice to learn! I wonder about such things. Thanks!
Elizabeth
So glad you liked it!
Lori
I just made this. I had to use arrowroot since I didn’t have any cornstarch in the house. It took a little longer to thicken up and when I turned around the eggs looked curdled. Still taste yummy but next time I’ll definitely make sure I have cornstarch.
Elizabeth
That’s really good to know about the arrowroot powder- I was curious! Thanks!
Ali J Moore
Are you able to re-heat the leftovers?
Elizabeth
Sure thing!
Phil
Took longer than 15 Minute to scroll down to the actual recipe.
Elizabeth
Whoa- sounds like you need a new computer mouse! Haha but in all seriousness, I understand that the scrolling down to recipes can be kind of a pain. Let me give you a brief explanation about why there is a lot of text before the actual recipe. First of all, Google (and other search engines) will rank your recipe based on the quality of content it can see. More content = more information = a higher ranking when you search. I’m not sure if you found my recipe from a google search or not, but if you did, it is likely because of that content you had to scroll through! Second, the content is a good place to put ads, and providing free recipes to people is my full-time job. I have to place ads in the content, otherwise I would make no money! Getting free recipes on the internet often comes at the price of having to scroll for a little bit- otherwise, you can always purchase a cookbook. Hope that helped explain the reasoning! Have a good day :-)
KJ84
Looking forward to trying this! You make sound so easy and super delicious! I just wanted to say about the yellow colouring – it is most likely achieved by adding a pinch of Turmeric (not sure what that will do to the flavour of the soup yet)
Elizabeth Lindemann
That’s a great point! Thanks so much for bringing this up- I’m going to be redoing this post soon and will add this information to it :-)
Susan
I guess Phil missed the “Jump to Recipe” button!
Emerald
I didn’t know restaurants add food coloring because the one I go to doesn’t that’s scary. This is an awesome recipe.
Elizabeth
Happy you like the recipe! :-)
Mrs.V
This sounds super yummy! I’ve been looking for a good homemade egg drop soup recipe for my hubby! Gonna try this tomorrow. I also heard you can use a little tumeric to get that coloring. It has the added benefit of being healthy too!
Elizabeth
Turmeric is a great idea! Healthy, too. Thanks for the tip, hope you like it!
Kep
You could also add a little saffron and that will add deep flavor and add yellow color.
Elizabeth
I love that idea, thanks for sharing!
Sarah Grace Micallef
Why cn I use if I don’t have garlic powder? Fresh garlic?
Elizabeth
That should work! Try grating it with a microplane zester so the pieces are super small and incorporate into the broth better. Hope you like it!
Sid
You can use the leftover egg whites in cupcakes/cakes, fry batters, various pastries, egg dishes, etc.
Elizabeth
Thanks for the awesome suggestions!
Ela
My chicken stock gets a nice yellow color by throwing in an onion with the peel still on, I just cut off the roots. It also contributes to the flavor.
Elizabeth
What an awesome idea! I’ll have to try that next time.
trialandeater1
Homemade is always better than take-out! Stay safe in the storm!
Elizabeth
Thanks! :-)