This is a recipe for a healthful, clean, and yet really wonderful pearl barley soup that is loaded with veggies. It's far more fascinating with the chewy, nutty barley than it is with pasta or rice alone.
It's also a fantastic foundation recipe for homemade soup. To fit your desires or the contents of your fridge, mix & match your veggies using my cooking process and broth flavorings!
Pearl Barley Soup
How often do you pass by packets of pearl barley at the grocery store without thinking about it? The next time, grab a package! In place of regular rice or pasta, pearl barley adds a lot more flavor to soups and salads and is inexpensive and simple to cook.
Thus, barley soup today! Easy to prepare, flavorful, and packed with healthy vegetables, this soup's flavor is elevated by the tiny touch of sautéing some herbs and spices. It truly brings out the flavor's bloom. It will amaze you!
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1. BARLEY AND BROTH FLAVOURINGS
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Pearl barley – Tasty whole grains have a nutty flavour and chewy texture that heightens the eating experience of this otherwise simple soup. Find it in the soup or grain aisle at the grocery store, alongside dried beans usually.
Not to be confused with HULLED barley which is tougher and takes longer to cook. Hulled barley has only had the outer hull removed. Pearl barley has had the hull as well as some of the bran removed, resulting in a grain which is paler, cooks faster, and is less chewy. Pearl barley is what we are using today.
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Vegetable stock/broth – Homemade is so simple to make, it’s really worth making your own! Otherwise, store-bought is still decent and fine to use.
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Bay leaves and thyme – The herbs. Fresh will bring better flavour to the soup but dried works too.
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Ground coriander and fennel seeds – We’re just using 1/4 teaspoon of each here which isn’t much, but it’s enough to add a little something-something to the flavour of the broth that makes people wonder why is this so tasty?! As mentioned above, sautéing the herbs and spices is the trick here which brings out the flavour.
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2. THE VEGGIES
Oops, onion is missing! If I had better Photoshop skills, I’d draw one in.
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Onion – Putting this first because it’s missing from the photo! Just your usual everyday brown or white onion.
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Garlic – Because rarely do any savoury recipes happen around here without garlic.
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Veggie add-ins – I’ve used carrots, celery, mushrooms and swedes here (rutabaga in the US). But if you’re looking to make it your own, you can use any vegetables that can sustain a 35 minute simmering time. For faster-cooking vegetables (like asparagus), sauté them first, remove, then add them back in towards the end of the cook time.
For instantly wilt-able greens like baby spinach, just throw them in at the end.
Swedes? Just in case you aren’t familiar with swedes, they’re a bit like turnips and when cooked are sweet, soft and have an earthy, carrot-y and pumpkin-like flavour. Called rutabaga in the US, they are easy to peel with a standard vegetable peeler. They bring something a little different to the soup. Best substitutes for similar texture would be turnips, parsnips, celeriac or potatoes.
How to make Barley Soup
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Sauté vegetables – Heat the oil then sauté all the vegetables for 5 minutes to soften. Just put them all in at the same time – onion, garlic, carrots, celery, mushrooms and swede. They won’t go golden, we just want to cook them to get some nice garlicky flavour and a little colour on the outside before we simmer.
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Sauté herbs and spices – Add the thyme, bay leaves, coriander, fennel, salt and pepper and cook for 1 minute. Cooking them like this rather than throwing them into the broth adds more flavour into the soup because toasting the spices blooms the flavour!
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Barley – Rinse the barley in a colander just under tap water, then leave it for a few minutes to drain before using. Then add barley and vegetables stock into the pot, then give it a good stir
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Simmer 35 minutes on medium heat or until the pearl barley is cooked through. Pearl barley does not soften completely like overcooked pasta. It retains a bit of a chew to it which is what makes it so good! You will know straight away with one taste if it’s cooked through because raw pearl barley is hard like raw rice.
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Ingredients
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil.
- 1 onion , finely diced.
- 2 small or 1 large carrot (~200g/7oz), peeled, chopped into 1cm / 0.4" cubes.
- 2 celery stems , chopped into 1cm / 0.4″ cubes
- 150g / 5 oz white mushrooms , cut in 4 (larger ones cut into 6 or 8)
- 2 garlic cloves , finely minced
- 1/2 tsp fresh thyme , chopped (or 1/4 tsp dried)
- 1/4 tsp ground coriander
- 1/4 tsp ground fennel
Recipe Notes:
1. Swedes – Similar to turnips but softer, sweeter, and with a more earthy flavor, they are known as rutabaga in the United States. When uncooked, it has a texture similar to potatoes and peels just like carrots with a regular vegetable peeler. Use potatoes, turnips, parsnips, or celeriac as a substitute.
2. Pearl barley – Compared to just preparing the soup with rice or pasta, this wonderful whole grain adds so much more intrigue to the dish. It has a nutty flavor and chewy texture. You can normally find it in the grocery store's soup section next to dry beans.
