I’m currently writing this during the holiday season, where holiday cheer is HIGH but my energy to make healthy meals during the other days of December is relatively low. And that’s where this Wilted Greens Egg Drop Soup comes in! It’s high in nutritional value, low in effort (there’s no chopping, just hand-tearing!) and you’ll have a supremely comforting meal in minutes. Plus, it’s a vegetarian egg drop soup, so it’s suitable for all kinds of diets.
The one thing to note about my style of egg drop soup is that by making it vegetarian, it is not traditional. Usually egg drop soup is made with chicken broth, which while delicious, doesn’t work for my vegetarian/pescatarian needs. To bulk up a bit of the flavor, I start this soup with a miso broth, which adds the depth, thickness and saltiness you need, all while still keeping this vegetarian!
Table of contents
The best kinds of greens for this recipe
If you ask me what type of green is my favorite green, I’m immediately going to go the route of cabbage or kale. I love them both so much, both for their availability and their affordability. For this soup I am always going to say – if you can use kale, use kale! But I also named it “wilted greens” because I want to be clear – the greens are up to you.
A few other great greens to use are:
- Swiss chard – remove the ribs here (and maybe use them for a salad? They are so pretty), and then this will act just like kale!
- Collards – similar to kale, these are a bit bitter. If you tear them into small enough pieces, they are great for this soup.
- Mustard greens – this is another type of green that I love scooping up any chance I get. They melt perfectly into this soup.
- Spinach – the one downside of spinach is it does lose its size after a while, so you’ll need to use a ton. But whoever complained about more vegetables, right?
Why do we need to cook the broth paste in this vegetarian egg drop soup?
I like to make my vegetarian egg drop a bit more flavorful by starting off with a high-flavor broth. The thing is, this broth base uses both fresh ginger and fresh garlic, which taste pretty “meh” if you don’t toast them first. If you don’t toast them, you are essentially boiling them, which is fine, but not great.
How I like to fix this problem is by making all of my broth ingredients into a paste, then toasting that in the pan with a bit of sesame oil and avocado oil. Then I add the water and whisk it into a broth. This maximizes the flavor in your broth but still only takes minutes.
How to make your preferred texture of egg drop soup
Egg drop soup can either have big egg “flowers” or small egg “ribbons.” And both are delicious! Don’t let the words steer you away!
The key to making larger egg pieces is to pour a thick stream of your beaten eggs into the simmering broth quickly. Then stop and give the broth a swirl, then repeat.
The key to getting smaller ribbons (my preferred), is to do a continuous stream of egg into the simmering broth. Make sure the stream is thin, and then you’ll have smaller egg ribbons that I find are easy to scoop and beautiful to plate.
What is egg drop soup texture typically like?
If you hate runny yolk, do not fear. The texture of egg drop soup is more like a rich scrambled egg swirled into broth. There’s a reason the Chinese have been doing it for centuries!
It’s not runny egg texture, but it’s not too stiff, either. The broth prevents that from happening. And the same thing happens here in this Wilted Greens Egg Drop Soup!
Looking for similar recipes?
Here are a few soups that are quickly earning cult followings on the blog!
And that’s it for this Wilted Greens Egg Drop Soup!
If you make it, please tag me on Pinterest or Instagram so I can see! It’s my favorite thing to scroll through stories and see what you all are making.
And of course feel free to leave any questions, comments or reviews! This is the best place to reach me, and I’d love to hear from you <3
Wilted Greens Egg Drop Soup
Equipment
- 1 large stock pot
- 1 Whisk
Ingredients
- 1 cup white rice for serving
- 8 ounces lacinato kale ribs removed
- 8 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons white miso paste
- 1 tablespoon Better Than Bouillon vegetable stock paste
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 3 garlic cloves grated
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil
- 8 cups water
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons chili crisp for serving
Instructions
- Cook the rice according to package instructions and set aside.
- Tear the kale into bite-sized pieces. Wash and set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together four eggs.
- In a separate small bowl, mash together 2 tablespoons of white miso paste, 1 tablespoon of Better than Bouillon vegetable stock, 1 tablespoon of freshly grated ginger, and 3 freshly grated garlic cloves.
- Set a large stock pot over medium heat. Add 1 teaspoon of sesame oil and 1 tablespoon of avocado oil. Add the miso paste mixture and cook, stirring often for 1-2 minutes or until fragrant.
- Pour 8 cups of water into the pot, stirring constantly to combine the miso paste into a broth. Bring this mixture to a simmer. Taste and season with salt as preferred.
- Once the broth is simmering, slowly drizzle in the beaten eggs. If you drizzle in a thick stream, you'll get larger egg ribbons, if your stream is thin, the egg ribbons will be more dispersed. It's personal preference!
- Once the eggs are fully in the broth, swirl to make a vortex and crack in the four remaining eggs to poach them in the broth. Poach them for 4 minutes or until the whites are set.
- Remove the pot from the stove and gently mix in the kale. Cover this for 2 minutes so the greens wilt into the soup.
- Taste and season with 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, plus more as preferred.
- Serve each portion with one poached egg included. Drizzle with chili crisp and serve with cooked white rice.
This sounds amazing! Does it reheat well? I only cook for myself and love meals that work well as leftovers. Thanks!
Yes! I keep it in the fridge in a stock pot and reheat throughout the week! The only thing that does firm up is the poached eggs, so feel free to poach them as you serve it!
Maybe it’s my Middle American Tastebuds but I had to like quadruple the seasoning in this to taste the broth at all. It was delicious once I did, but I recommend tasting as you go and feeling ok about going a little ham on that part. Kale and eggs and water don’t impart that much flavor on their own!
(I also snuck in some corn starch to get that glossy texture!)
Love your shit girl, thanks!
No this is a good note! Some misos tend to be saltier than others, so that might be a part of the issue! Let me retest with a few other brands and see if we need any salt adjustments 🙂
Made this for some friends last night — they all LOVED it! I did 1.5x the recipe, and also upped the amount of soup base (bouillon, miso, ginger, garlic, sesame oil) because I prefer a really flavorful broth. Also I left out the soy sauce because my miso and bouillon seemed salty enough. DELICIOUS! Will definitely make again. Thank you Justine!!
So SO glad you liked it!
I made this with some leftover beet greens and it was phenomenal
So so happy you liked it!