I am a huge fan of vegetable soups, especially when the weather turns cold. This winter, I wanted to switch things up from my classic vegetable soup, so I made a vegetable barley soup instead!
Basically, I took my classic vegetable soup recipe and merged it with my mushroom barley stew recipe (old, old recipe!). I omitted the corn from the veggie soup and let barley more than take its place.
Then, I added some of the mushrooms that make mushroom barley soup unique. To make the soup a tad spicier, I amped up the red pepper flake and black pepper. Finally, I made this recipe thin so it was soup-like, not stew-like.
This recipe is just a guide, no two vegetable soup recipes are the same. You could add just about any other vegetable that you wanted. Try green beans, bell pepper, kale, spinach, cabbage, or add back in the corn, the sky is the limit!
The easy game plan for this Vegetable Barley Soup recipe:
- Cut up all the vegetables before you do anything else including the onion, celery, carrot, sweet potato, garlic, and mushrooms. Finishing your prep before you start cooking alleviates hurriedness and stress!
- Then sweat the onions and celery with olive oil in a pot at least 6 quarts. While this cooks, measure out all the seasonings into a small bowl with the barley. Open the cans of beans and tomatoes, draining the beans. Measure the peas, broth and water.
- Once the onions are translucent, add everything to the pot, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook covered until the barley is tender, about 45-50 minutes. Taste test and add salt if necessary.
- Finally, remove from heat, remove the bay leaf, and stir in the apple cider vinegar to brighten the soup! Serve with crusty bread.
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 2 large stalks celery, chopped
- 2 TBS olive oil
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 large carrot, sliced
- 8 oz mushrooms, sliced
- 1 medium sweet potato, diced
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1 bay leaf
- ½ tsp each: salt, dried oregano, thyme, rosemary, red pepper flake and black pepper
- ½ cup pearled barley
- 15 oz can diced tomatoes
- 15 oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 4 cups water
- 2 TBS apple cider vinegar
- Saute the onion and celery in olive oil over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, or until softened and translucent.
- Mix in broth through barley (broth, carrots, mushrooms, sweet potato, peas, bay leaf, salt, oregano, thyme, rosemary, red pepper flake, black pepper, barley, tomatoes, beans, and water). Bring to a boil and simmer for 45-50 minutes, or until the barley is tender.
- Remove from heat, remove the bay leaf and stir in apple cider vinegar.
