Matzo Ball Soup is as personal as your favorite old pajamas, and no pair will ever be as good as yours.
Just like any traditional comfort food, there are endless variations and personalization, and while we have one we go-to, we’ve truthfully never met a matzo ball we didn’t love.
Matzo ball soup is eaten all throughout the year, but it is especially prevalent at Passover, a celebration remembering the Biblical story of Exodus, when the Hebrew slaves were freed from Egypt. Matzo, the main ingredient in a matzo ball, is unleavened, cracker-like bread eaten during the week-long festival of Passover, representing the unleavened bread the Jews ate as they fled Egypt.
Matzo is unleavened—or unfermented, and therefore flat—because of the holiday prohibition against leavened food, like typical bread. Because of this tradition, matzo finds its way into many preparations, from breakfast to dessert. Matzo spread with peanut butter, matzo brei, matzo icebox cakes! Though matzo is most commonly sold in sheets, you can also buy matzo meal.
But of course, Matzo ball soup is perhaps the king of matzo preparations. With such a long history, it’s no wonder this recipe can take so many forms. Matzo balls can be very light and fluffy—thanks to the inclusion of bubbly club soda or whipped egg whites—or denser with plenty of egg yolks.
One addition that is generally not negotiable is the inclusion of Schmaltz, or rendered chicken fat. Used anywhere you might otherwise use butter or olive oil, most commonly in savory preparations, schmaltz is made from heating chicken skin in a non-stick pan until the fat renders and becomes liquid.
It is commonly cooked with onions, giving the fat a chicken soup flavor this is unmistakable and irreplaceable. Some specialty stores may sell prepared schmaltz, but it’s easy to make with leftover skins from other preparations. Your butcher may even sell you chicken skin for just this use! If they don’t have it on hand, many butchers will happily set some aside for you.
Once you’ve prepared your matzo ball mixture—schmaltz included!—you have to cook them. Matzo balls are bread-like dumplings, which means we cook them in water until they swell and become solid, but tender. You can cook the matzo balls in your soup broth, which will add lots of flavor to the matzo balls themselves, but it will make your soup a bit cloudy. That doesn’t bother us too much, but for a special occasion, you can cook them separately in water (or additional broth, if you have it on hand!), and then add them to the soup.
Matzo ball soup garnish is another area of fierce debate. Some people serve the soup with no garnish at all: just soup and dumplings. But you may want to add cooked carrot, celery, or shredded chicken. Minced herbs, like parsley or dill, are delicious, too!
For such a simple soup, the broth is key, so homemade and rich is our preference. If you don’t have homemade broth, you can fortify store-bought with the addition of some chicken (even 1 lb of boney chicken in a few quarts will do the trick) and aromatic veggies. Simmer for about 30 minutes—or up to an hour, if you can—before straining.