What is Matzo Soup?

Nothing says comfort food like a bowl of matzo ball soup. And even if it’s not your Jewish grandma making it for Passover, this traditional dumplings-in-broth meal is a beloved classic of deli-goers and soup enthusiasts everywhere.

What is Matzo? 

The star ingredient this soup features are the large balls of matzo meal dough. What is matzo, you ask? Well, for starters you might know it by its alternative spelling of “matzah.” It’s an unleavened flatbread that traditionally was eaten during the seven-day Jewish Passover, made of solely flour and water. According to Jewish Law, “chametz” or leaven grains shouldn’t be eaten at this time—and thus matzo was born! Nowadays, it can be found in both soft and crispy forms, as well as ground into a meal.

Super soup

This matzo meal forms the base of the matzo balls! Generally, they also include eggs, water, and oil (often it’s “schmaltz,” AKA chicken fat). After forming the balls, they’re simmered in the soup for 20-30 minutes until cooked. There’s no one correct recipe to make these dumplings—while some are light enough to float, others are dense and sink to the bottom! The broth part of matzo ball soup is usually a chicken soup; other variants exist as well, though. As with any simple recipe, the iterations are endless.

Putting matzo ball soup together at Gotham Bagels Gold Coast

A little background

We can’t pinpoint exactly where this soup started. What we do know, however, is that matzo is an Ashkenazi invention, and that this soup probably arose in that community. Culinary influences from the parts of Eastern and Central Europe where they settled also likely played a role. There exist plenty of ancient dumpling soup recipes in Russia, Poland, Austria, and Germany. With the mass production of crispy matzo crackers in the late 19th century, matzo meal became readily available, making preparing this soup even easier. And the rest is history! Nowadays, many stores sell just-add-water matzo mixes.

Archival photo from Streit’s Matzo and the American Dream (Menemsha Films)

Did you know…

Matzo and matzo ball soup have a lot of curious happenings in their history. For example, would you have guessed that the first matzo factory was located in Cincinnati, Ohio? The B. Manischewitz Company remains the stuff of legend since 1888. And here’s another fun fact: the biggest matzo ball ever created weighed 426 pounds, created by Jon Wirtis from Tuscon, Arizona. While we’re talking records, at the Inaugural World Matzoh Ball Eating Championship event in 2008, Joey Chestnut broke the world record and ate 78 balls in 8 minutes. That is a lot of matzo…