The Easiest Beef Barley Soup

Soup is just a great food. Easy to heat up for a quick meal. Usually easy to make. Uses up left overs and transforms them into a wonderful new meal.

And a perfect fall food.

I made a large corned beef this past week. We’ve eaten all the chicken noodle soup form last week. So I decided to turn some of the left over corned beef into beef and barley soup. You could use any kind of left over beef – beef roast, prime rib, left over steak. Just cut it all up into bite size pieces.

Soup is pretty healthy too – lots of vegetables and in this case whole grain goodness from barley. I tend to buy barley in bulk as hulled or pearled, and then cook it in my Instant Pot part way (otherwise it can take a long time to cook in the soup) but quick cooking barley is just fine if that is what you have. Par cooking the hulled barley lets it finish in the pot, and soak up some of the soup flavor. The Instant Pot, a multi function cooker, works great as a pressure cooker. My mom and grandma always had pressure cookers to cook things fast. Theirs were the old fashioned kind, with weights that jiggled on top. The kind everyone was afraid would explode. Good old Mirro’s. I have a Instant Pot and Ninja Foodi these days.

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Easy Beef Barley Soup

Course Appetizer, Main Course
Cuisine American
Keyword beef barley soup, light dinner soup, simple, easy soup
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 6 people

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of left over beef beef roast, prime rib, corned beef chopped
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 medium onion diced
  • 2 ribs of celery sliced
  • 8 oz mushrooms sliced or chopped
  • 3 small carrots sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 cup beef stock
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • ½ cup tomato puree
  • 1 cup barley – par cooked or ½ cup instant uncooked
  • 3 cups water
  • 1 bay leaf
  • ½ tsp dried thyme

Instructions

  1. In a Dutch oven, add the oil and heat over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and mushrooms and sauté until slightly softened. Add the carrots and sauté another 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic, stir in and sauté 30 seconds. Stir in the meat.
  2. Pour in beef and chicken stock, tomatoes, and 3 cups of water. Stir to mix, and add the barley, bay leaf and thyme. Cook until the barley is cooked through.
  3. Remove bay leaf before serving.
  4. Serve with hearty bread or crispy crackers.