Get the Recipe: Mushroom Barley Soup
A hearty vegetable soup recipe with mushrooms, carrot and barley in a savoury broth.
Ingredients
For cooking the barley:
- 3/4 cup pearl barley, *see Note 1 below
- 4 cups water
Soup:
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil, or other cooking oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 ribs celery, diced
- 2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
- 1 lb mushrooms, sliced *see Note 2 below
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 4 cups beef broth, or "beef flavoured" vegetarian broth
- 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves, or 2 fresh thyme sprigs
- 1 teaspoon Balsamic vinegar
- 1/4-1/3 cup chopped parsley, plus more for garnish
- Salt and pepper, as needed
Instructions
- Bring the 4 cups of water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the barley and return to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 30 minutes.
- While the barley is cooking, start the soup by heating the cooking oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions, celery and carrots and cook, stirring, about 5-7 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook with the vegetables until softened and golden, about 4-5 minutes more.
- Add the flour to the pot and cook, stirring together with the vegetables, for about 1 minute.
- Add the beef broth, tomato paste and thyme to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat under the pot and simmer on low heat for 20-25 minutes or until the carrots are tender. Be sure to taste-test the carrots to be sure.
- When the barley is cooked, spoon it directly into the soup pot and stir in. Simmer the soup with the barley for 5-10 minutes to allow the flavours to blend. If the soup becomes too thick, add a splash more beef broth or a bit of water to thin. Add the balsamic vinegar and chopped parsley and stir in.
- Taste the soup and add additional salt and freshly ground pepper, as needed. Soup generally needs a lot of salt. If the flavours taste a little flat, it needs more salt!
- Serve with additional chopped parsley, for garnish.
Notes
Note 1: You might wonder if you could just cook the barley in the soup instead of cooking it separately. I have tested it both ways, and there are definite benefits to cooking the barley separately. It takes a long time for the barley to cook in the soup, in fact, it takes just as much time to cook it in the soup as it takes to cook it separately. Further, when cooking the barley in the soup, the barley will absorb a lot of the broth to cook the barley, and the soup will inevitably become too thick.
Note 2: You can use cremini or button mushrooms. I prefer cremini. I like to start with whole mushrooms and slice them myself, as they make more varied textures in the soup. 1 lb. of mushrooms is two standard 8 oz trays of mushrooms.
Tip!
Carrots! If there is one thing that can ruin a lovely pot of soup, it's hard carrots. Be sure to test the carrots to be sure they are tender before adding the cooked barley to the pot. I like to chop them fairly small myself.
Be sure to read the notes above this Recipe Card, where you will find substitution suggestions and step-by-step photos that you might find helpful.
Serving: 1serving, Calories: 211kcal, Carbohydrates: 41g, Protein: 11g, Fat: 2g, Saturated Fat: 0.5g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.5g, Monounsaturated Fat: 0.3g, Sodium: 1047mg, Potassium: 932mg, Fiber: 9g, Sugar: 7g, Vitamin A: 7244IU, Vitamin C: 14mg, Calcium: 73mg, Iron: 3mg
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