Seaweed Egg Drop Soup (紫菜蛋花湯)
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You have no idea how much I love about reading the comments, suggestions, and requests from the readers. The feedback from all of you really motivates me to keep the site up so please don’t hesitate to drop a line whenever you feel like it.
A few readers have requested for easy and quick weekday meal recipes. Like many of you who work full-time, I find it quite challenging to cook a “real” meal on weeknights because of the constraints in time and resource. However, it can also be fun and rewarding if you know how to whip up sometime quick with what you have.
Case in point, when hurricane Sandy hit New York, I was stuck home for a few days. After I ran out of the stock I started to put together simple meals with whatever I could find in my fridge and cabinets. Pretty soon I was left with only some chicken stock, eggs, and dried seaweed. Since I couldn’t make anything brilliant with those ingredients I ended up making a egg drop soup with the seaweed. It turned to be the best decision I ever made J
This seaweed egg drop is a classic Chinese homemade soup dish eaten in most part of China. The combination of the seaweed flavor and the egg drop soup reminds me of childhood comfort food. The seaweed used in the soup is a particular variety of dried seaweed called zicai (紫菜). You should be able to find it in many Chinese grocery stores.
In this recipe I also used some dried baby shrimp. Compared to regular dried shrimp, the dried baby shrimp is lighter-colored and have a less intense of flavor, adding just right amount of savory to the soup.
As I mentioned, this dish is extremely easy to make that you can probably make it in less than 10 minutes. Definite give it a try if you are looking for a quick weekday dish!
1. In a soup pot, combine the chicken stock with the sliced ginger. Bring to boil
2.Tear the zicai / dried seaweed into smaller pieces and drop into the stock. Stir gently. Turn the heat to simmer. Add dried baby shrimp (optional)
3.Thicken the soup with corn starch. Slowly drop in egg and gently whisk with a fork. Turn off the heat immediate to not overcook the egg. Flavor the soup with salt and pepper
Garnish with chopped scallion when serving
Ingredients
- 1 sheet of zicai / dried seaweed (??)
- 2 egg, beaten
- 3 cup chicken stock
- Sliced ginger
- 2 tbsp corn starch, mixed with 3 tbsp of water
- Salt and pepper
- 1 tbsp dried baby shrimp
- Chopped scallion for garnishing
Instructions
- In a soup pot, combine the chicken stock with the sliced ginger. Bring to boil
- Tear the zicai / dried seaweed into smaller pieces and drop into the stock. Stir gently. Turn the heat to simmer. Add dried baby shrimp (optional)
- Thicken the soup with corn starch. Slowly drop in egg and gently whisk with a fork. Turn off the heat immediate to not overcook the egg. Flavor the soup with salt and pepper
- Garnish with chopped scallion when serving
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Wow I’ve found a Website with easy to cook chinese recipe! I’m from Germany with Chinese/Vietnamese parents. Which means I’ve got the chance to taste amazing cantonese and vietnamese dishes at home. And I’m eager to learn more. But my problem is: All “authentic” chinese or all asian food is westernised here. Basically they cook all the same stuff with western ingredients and everyone is telling me how great chinese food taste. Well, how should they know?
That’s why I’m so happy to see your Website! I want to introduce my friends and this country common food from different asian countries. Especially this recipe haha. My mum came back from China and has brought me many ingredients which I don’t really know what it’s called in english/german. She only said to me it’s healthy. I should eat.:D I will try your Version next time.
Anayway
Thanks for keeping up the posts so far! Many recipe for me to try out.
Hi Ying, thanks for checking out my website and I am glad to hear that you enjoy authentic Asian cuisines as opposed to the westernized versions. Hope find the recipes on this site useful and feel free to let me know if you have any questions 🙂 Yi
I made a similar soup and added seaweed, greens, quail eggs tofu too. Very delicious and fills me up fast! I will make it next time with egg drop.❤
I like to add black beans in chili oil to add an earthiness and a bit of heat. White pepper is good as well as Sichuan pepper. I use dried sardines as a sub for the shrimp sometimes. Hey thanks for sharing!!!
Thanks for checking out my blog.Like your version of chili oil. I’ll try to add some black beans next time!
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Hi Yi! This soup is really great – however, as I have no Asian supermarkets near me, I had to use something else for the seaweed. Using spinach for it is still very good, and adding a little bit of white pepper made this soup a star with my family!
Thank you for the upload, and hoping to make a successful hot pot tomorrow using your recipe. 🙂
Hello Chen, thanks for the feedback. I think the spinach works very good with egg drop soup. I’ve done a similar soup and I like it alot. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback on the hotpot recipe 🙂
Hi Yi,
I just found your blog today and I think it is great.
I am trying to cook today 2 courses from your webpage.
Seaweed egg-drop soup and Peking sauce pork and rice.
I would love to try again Xi’an Jiaozi.
I ate them when I was travelling around China many years ago.
There was in Xi’an, in very small local bar. It was served with very hot soya sauce, 2 drops of the sauce and it I could hardly eat it.
The taste of this simple dish was so perfect I still miss it.
Maybe you know this recipe.
all the best
Ra’deck
Hello Ra’deck, thanks for your comments. I am so happy to hear that you were going to try those two recipes. These are some of my long time favorites. Please let me know how they came out! Regarding the Xi’an jaozi, do you have any more descriptions for me to research? Are they just like regular dumplings? What is in the sauce? I would love to find out for you if you can provide a little more information. Thanks.
My family like this simple & tasty soup. You can add tofu & shiitake mushroom too, try it. 🙂
hi Earlene, i totally agree. I’ve made this soup with tofu and shiitake mushroom before and it came out excellent. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thank you for sharing this recipe and thanks for the good pictures!
I was searching the Net for some information about a package of some seaweed I have bought a long time ago. All it siad was “chinese red algae”, and I haven’t got a clue how to use it. I needed some seaweed for a fish recipe. Now I know! Thank you.
Btw. It seems you just drop in the zicai and then it is ready to eat in no time. But can it tolerate extensive cooking? 10-15 min or more perhaps? you dont wash it before using it, is it right?
Bye from Denmark (were noone eats seaweed, except me!)
Hello Lasse,
I am glad to find that I have a reader from Denmark (a truly beautiful country and I have “traveled” a good part of the country through google earth).
The zicai requires little cooking. I normally let it cook for no more than 3 minute as it gets a little tougher the longer you cook. As for washing, I normally buy the package that says wash-free. If you find your zicai sandy just quickly rinse it in cold water before you cook it.
Hope you get to cook this soup!
I like this soup too! Simple yet so soothing and comforting, esp. on a cold winter night.
totally agree with you. Just made this soup again the past week.
Your egg drop soup looks beautiful Yi! When I started to make this soup, my egg wasn’t pretty… not fluffy at all. After many practice (sort of), I finally can make fluffy soft egg. I’ve never used this type of seaweed (there are so many kinds of seaweed!), and so glad you shared it with us. I love the use of dried shrimp too. I only have “sakura ebi” (small shrimp we use for Japanese cooking) but I’ll check this type of shrimp in Chinese market next time. We’d love this soup!!
Hi Nami, I am glad that you are also a fan of egg drop soup!
Love this soup…easy and fast…and so tasty. Thanks for sharing the recipe Yi.
Have a great week!
Thanks Juliana. You have a great week too!
Very nice and simple soup dish, I love it
thanks Raymund for your kind words
What a healthy and warming recipe 🙂
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Thank you Choc Chip Uru!
wow! yi this is so good! let yi recipes keep coming!
Thanks for your kind words Ali!
wow! yi this is so good! more more more yi recipes!
Egg drops soup is always comfort to me, but adding seaweed and dry shrimps I know that is packed with a lots of flavor! Looks very delicious!
Thanks for your visit Sandra.
This is my kind of soup. Simply delightful! I love them with a couple of steamed buns for the lunch.
Thanks Angie. Good call on the steamed buns! Should have a couple of them in the background.
I noticed the ying yang in your bowl of soup, nice touch Yi! I absolutely love egg drop seaweed soup, it’s always so comforting to come to your blog and see dishes I grew up with, keep up with the great work!
Hi Cindy, thanks for your visit. I will keep this kind of comfort food coming 🙂
a chinese classic that I love, simple and healthy (:
Good to see you shuhan. Thanks for your kind words.
This looks like such a terrific soup! And so quick to make. I don’t often use seaweed in my own cooking, but always enjoy it when I eat at restaurants – I really need to start using it at home, too. Good stuff – thanks.
Hi kitchenriffs, i always have some seaweed sitting around my kitchen for emergencies. It stores very well so you can keep a package of it for months. Definitely give it a try next time:)
This is such a healthy and simple recipe. Perfect for a cold winter night. 🙂
You are so right Amy, this soup is perfect for cold weather.