The Best Matzo Ball Soup (From Scratch!)

No matter how tender the brisket or how tasty the charoset, matzo ball soup always steals the show on any Passover menu. It’s cozy and fragrant, and who can say no to a matzo ball? Now, you’re probably expecting me to tell some heartwarming story about how I grew up rolling matzo balls with my family while the homemade chicken stock simmered on the stove and the house smelled of herby, schmaltzy goodness.

Well, that’s not quite accurate. In reality, my family’s Passover tradition was walking next door to our neighbor’s house for the seder, where we’d eat a completely catered meal from a local diner — matzo ball soup included.

But now that I’m an adult, my traditions have changed. I went to culinary school, which gave me the skills and confidence to whip up a rich, flavorful homemade stock. And a few years of self-taught matzo ball making helped me tweak and perfect the art of these delicate beauts.

The recipe I’m sharing here includes my secret for the best-tasting stock, as well as a choose-your-own-adventure guide to making dense or fluffy matzo balls (the never-ending Passover debate). No shame if you order in your matzo ball soup or use the matzo ball packets, but if you, like me, prefer to do everything from scratch (or are looking to start a new family tradition), this is the recipe for you.

• This classic matzo ball soup is packed full of slow-cooked flavor, and even though it’s a project, you can split up the cooking and make the stock the day before matzo balls.
• It’s flexible. If you like your matzo balls fluffy, add baking soda, if you prefer a more dense consistency, just skip it and use water or broth instead of seltzer.
• It makes perfect leftovers, both the stock and the matzo balls can be frozen for up to three months!

• Chicken: You can use a whole 4 to 5 pound chicken or, if you prefer, 4 to 5 pounds of whole chicken legs.
• Onions: Yellow onions along with celery and carrots make up the backbone of the aromatic stock.
• Parsnips: Parsnips add extra flavor to the soup, rather than opting for only carrots.
• Dill: Fresh dill brings herby flavor and color to the matzo balls. Save some extra for serving!
• Matzo meal: Matzo meal is the base of the matzo balls. If you can’t find them, you can make your own by breaking matzo into 1 to 2-inch pieces and grinding them in a food processor until they’re the consistency of fine breadcrumbs.
• Chicken schmaltz: Schmaltz is rendered chicken fat. You can find it in some grocery and specialty stores, or you can skim the fat from the top of your refrigerated stock (if you’ve opted to make it the day before.) Alternatively, you can swap in unsalted butter.
• Seltzer: Seltzer helps give the matzo balls a light, airy texture. If you prefer denser matzo balls, swap the seltzer for water of chicken broth.

Let’s start with the stock. Homemade chicken stock is easy to make, but you will need to set aside a few hours to do it. Here are the basic steps:

1. Place the chicken in the pot. This stock is made with a whole chicken, broken down into eight parts (if you’re not comfortable doing this yourself, you can always ask your butcher to do it). If you prefer dark meat, you can also make the stock entirely with chicken legs.
2. Add aromatics and herbs. These add a nice background flavor while still letting the chicken shine. In addition to the usual suspects (onions, carrots, celery, parsley), I like to enrich my stock with a few parsnips, which impart a subtle sweetness.
3. Bring the stock to a simmer. After all of the ingredients are in the pot, bring the stock to a very gentle simmer — and keep it there. If you boil your stock, too much water will evaporate; boiling can also make your stock cloudy.
4. Remove the thighs, breasts, and drums. By fishing them out an hour into cooking, you avoid overcooking them, meaning you can shred them once they’ve cooled and add the shredded chicken to the finished soup, if you like.

For cooks who like to get ahead and/or those who like to use schmaltz (aka chicken fat) in their matzo balls, the stock can be made the day before and refrigerated. Just skim off the fat for making your matzo balls.

Once you’ve got your stock going, it’s time to work on the matzo balls. Contrary to popular belief, the biggest controversy surrounding Passover isn’t who finds the afikomen — it’s whether you’re team fluffy or team dense matzo balls (aka floaters versus sinkers).

Let’s just say if you’re a guest at my seder, you’re eating the fluffy ones. But lucky for all of us, it’s easy to tweak this recipe to achieve your desired result. Here’s how.

• For fluffy matzo balls: Add baking powder and seltzer to the matzo meal mixture, which helps aerate it.
• For denser matzo balls: Skip the baking powder and swap the seltzer for chicken stock or water.

These matzo balls are made with chicken fat, or schmaltz, which imparts a rich chicken flavor. You can use homemade or store-bought, or you can sub in vegetable oil or melted, unsalted butter — just keep in mind the latter isn’t kosher. These matzo balls also get a heavy hand of freshness from the addition of dill, but if you prefer a matzo ball with no specks of green, you can skip it.

Like the chicken broth, you can make the matzo ball mixture the day before and let it sit, covered, in the fridge overnight. If you’re making your matzo balls the day of, just make sure to let the mixture sit in the fridge for at least two hours before forming and cooking.

Because we don’t want to boil the luscious stock we worked so hard on, the matzo balls are cooked in a separate pot of boiling water and then transferred to the warm stock. You’ll also add a few carrots and the shredded chicken, if you’re using it. Once the carrots have softened a bit, ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with fresh dill and freshly ground black pepper.

Would it be easier to order some matzo ball soup from the deli? Sure. But this way is much more rewarding and, in my opinion, way more delicious. Matzo ball soup, you have my whole heart forever.