These chilly winter nights call for some hearty soup recipes, and we have the perfect one for you! We’ve put a heart-healthy twist on Youvarlakia, a traditional Greek meatball soup. Youvarlakia is traditionally made with beef, but in this version, we’re making it with ground turkey instead. This soup is full of Mediterranean flavors, juicy meatballs, and is finished off with a delicious egg-lemon sauce.
We make our Youvarlakia soup with a traditional avgolemono sauce, which has a fresh lemon base. However, should you want to experiment, this soup is also great with a tomato base. Soups made with avgolemono sauce are very popular in Greece. It’s a nice base for many vegetable and meat dishes too.
How to Make Youvarlakia
To finish the soup add the Avgolemono sauce to the pot with the meatballs and stir to combine.
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This is one of our go-to comfort foods throughout the winter and we hope you like it as much as we do!
Have you tried this recipe? If so, we’d love to hear from you so comment below! If you post it to Instagram be sure to tag #hearthealthygreek. And don’t forget to share it on Facebook, and save it to Pinterest. We love seeing you recreate our recipes!
Youvarlakia (Greek Meatball Soup)
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 1 cup uncooked rice
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 tbsp dill
- zest of ½ lemon
- 2 tsp thyme
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 egg
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 1 sprig rosemary
- dash of pepper
Avgolemono – lemon sauce
- 2 eggs (room temperatue)
- ½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
Instructions
Meatballs
- In a bowl add turkey, onion, rice, garlic, dill, lemon zest, thyme, olive oil and egg.
- Mix thoroughly until all ingredients are incorporated.
- Shape the mixture into small meatballs and place in a pot. At this time, place pot in the refrigerator to allow the meatballs to become firm (approximately 30 minutes).
- Remove pot from refrigerator, add broth and rosemary.
- Squeeze the juice from the lemon used for zest, and place the lemon in the pot.
- Cover the pot, place over low heat, and simmer for 40 minutes, or until thoroughly cooked.
Avgolemono Sauce
- Prepare the sauce by adding 2 eggs to a medium bowl.
- Beat the eggs and add in lemon juice.
- Continue to beat until eggs and lemon are frothy.
- While beating the mixture, slowly add 3 ladles of hot broth from the soup pot (this will temper the eggs).
- Once completely combined, add the sauce to the pot with the broth and stir.
- Place meatballs back in soup pot and stir gentle. Enjoy!
Notes
- Tempering the eggs is the process of warming up the eggs by adding a small amount of hot broth to them, while whisking. This process prevents the eggs from curdling when adding them to the broth.
- Ladle soup into individual bowls. Serve with a sprinkle of pepper/and or dill, a drizzle of olive oil, and Tuscany wheat bread.
Had this soup today for lunch and it was SUBLIME! The avgolemono takes it to a while new level!
Made this for card night…was a huge success. I love this recipe and remember having it as a child at my Thea’s house! 😋
Would love to see nutritional values due to medical issues.
Hi Susan, We try to take into account that we are watching our cholesterol, fat, and salt consumption in all of our recipes. We are not dieticians, but we try to read nutritional labels and try to come up with recipes that follow a heart healthy diet. Feel free to consult your doctor or nutritionist for their opinion on any of our recipes to see if they meet your specific dietary needs. Thank you for following along on our heart healthy journey.
OMG. So good!!! Make sure you take the meatballs out like she said when adding the egg/lemon sauce to the pot. I was being lazy and didn’t….my beautiful meatballs fell apart. But it was still DELICIOUS!!!!
So glad you enjoyed this recipe Hyun, it’s one of our favorite dishes!
-Christina & Alexa