With the recent spate of cold wet weather we’ve been having in Brisbane I found myself craving soup. I wanted something healthy (to make up for all the baking I’ve been doing recently) and satisfying and I decided to make a vegetable and barley soup.
Vegetable and barley soup reminds me of a soup my Nan used to make when I was a little girl. When we visited my Nan we’d often find that she’d have a soup bubbling away on the stove. I think this is where my love of soups comes from…..I guess that’s also what happens when you grow up in Tasmania where the winters are bitterly cold.
Barley, if you’re not familiar with it, is a grain derived from grass. It’s health benefits include the fact it is high in both soluble and insoluble fibre, assists in lowering cholesterol and aids in regulating blood sugar. Aside from it’s health benefits, it’s filling, making it a great addition to soups.
Whilst this vegetable and barley soup recipe is vegetarian and vegan but you could also just as easily incorporate your favourite meat stock.
Vegetable and Barley Soup
Ingredients:
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 shallot, diced
- 2 stalks of celery, diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, diced
- 2 tbsp of olive oil
- 2 carrots, peeled and diced
- 8 mushrooms, cleaned and diced
- 1 parsnip, peeled and diced
- 2 zucchini, diced
- 12 cherry tomatoes, chopped into quarters
- 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves, chopped
- 1 400g tin of diced tomatoes
- 2 cups of barley
- 2 litres of vegetable stock
Method:
1. In a large soup pot, over a medium heat, sautee the onion, shallot, celery and garlic in the olive oil until the onion begins to turn translucent.
2. Add the carrot, parsnip, mushrooms and zucchini and cook until they start to soften.
3. Then add the cherry tomatoes and thyme and cook for a couple of minutes before adding the vegetable stock, tinned tomatoes and barley. Cover and simmer for 1 hour or until the barley is tender.
I'm going to do this soup in the slower cooker 2MORO do you think it will work out the same
Hi Katrina, I suspect it would be fine in the slow cooker. Let me know what you think 😀
Luv this recipe and tastes great – but it’s so thick
with barley. I did exactly as the recipe. Did anyone
else discover this too.
Hi Pammie, sorry to hear your soup turned out so thick. Whilst the one I made had a relatively large amount of barley it wasn't thick. Maybe you will need to reduce the barley by half next time. Glad to hear you enjoyed it nonetheless. 🙂
Love the pictures! Making this tomorrow/making a big batch in hopes that I can munch on it until we have Thanksgiving here in the states. The cold has just recently hit my state pretty good so this'll keep me warmed up!
Thanks for stopping by Kara. 🙂 How did the soup turn out?
I love barley soup. Perfect fall soup, can't wait to give this a try :)!
Thanks 🙂 Hope you enjoy it if you give it a try.
Oh, yum! This is soooo perfect for fall!
Mary xo
Delightful Bitefuls
I just made barley soup today, too! It's so nice and chewy. I love it.
That's great, I'm glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
What a simple and delicious soup.. lots of lovely vegetables for loads of healthy flavour… yum!! Great recipe!
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Thanks Trudy 🙂 I love soup. I never realised how much soup I made until I started this blog. We had a storm earlier so today is perfect soup weather too.
I love this time of year- it's the perfect soup weather! I recently made tortellini sausage soup, but your soup looks WAY better!
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I love soup whether too but soon it will be too hot here for soup so I'm enjoying them while I can 🙂
I stumbled on your site while searching for a barley soup….and I m so glad to have found you.beautiful pictures and easy recipes…what more could one ask for.I particularly like the addition of parsnip in this recipe…never tried it in soups.
Will come back soon for more goodies!
Thanks for your kind words Tanvi and thanks for stopping by. 🙂
Ooh, I very much got into soups with the cold wet weather recently too. I ended up making Chinese noodle soups though, so nothing quite as hearty as this. My stomach feels full just looking at these photos (but I still want to eat the soup, regardless of whether I feel full!).
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