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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Recipe Exchange: Soup Season

Recipe Exchange: Soup Season

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Recipe Exchange: Soup Season

JeffreyW makes mouths water with this photo of his Beef and Barley Soup (with bonus Foccacia recipe here)

I’ve updated the basic soup recipe for Instant Pot style cooking. For the stovetop version, click here.

It has been unseasonably warm here, but I still wanted soup. Checked the freezer and I had a cross-rib roast, that would do since there was not a secret stash of chuck roast tucked away in there. All the other ingredients were handy, so Beef and Barley soup was it.

I added a potato, diced small, just because.

Beef & Barley Vegetable Soup

  • olive oil
  • 1 lb chuck, cut into small cubes
  • 1/2 small onion, diced
  • 2 tsp crushed garlic
  • 14 oz of tomatoes (fresh or canned)
  • 8 cups of water (or water and vegetable broth**)
  • 12 oz sliced carrots (frozen ok)
  • 12 oz green beans (frozen ok)
  • 3 stalks of celery, chopped
  • 1/2 cup barley
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne
  • 1/2 tsp ground pepper
  • 1/2 to 1 tsp salt (more as desired)
  • 2 bay leaves (remove before serving)

large saucepan

Heat oil in the instant pot on the sauté setting. Sauté onions for 1 minute, add beef and brown on all sides, add garlic and sauté for 1 minute making sure not to burn the garlic. Add remaining ingredients.  Set the pot to Soup/Stew setting and cook for 35 to 40 minutes, until barley is tender.  Use natural release method.

Serve with biscuits or cornbread.

**For vegetable broth,  I blend the tomatoes, and an additional 6 oz of carrots, 6 oz of green beans, 2 stalks of the celery, 1 cup water into a smooth puree, to make a hearty base for the soup.  I like the hearty stock.

Yum.

It’s soup season, so here are a few more: Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese,  Chicken Tortilla Soup, and Minestrone with Tiny Meatballs

Reader Interactions

86Comments

  1. 1.

    SiubhanDuinne

    It’s still pretty hot here (metro Atlanta), but the overnights have been cooler and I’ve been jonesing for a big baked potato. I don’t like to put much stuff on a b.p. — butter, S&P, maybe a few chopped chives, that’s it. But the potato itself has to be perfect.

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    @SiubhanDuinne:  A perfectly baked potato is just… *chef’s kiss*

    But now for the real question: do you eat the skin or not?

    (Hint: there is only one right answer here…)

  3. 3.

    Mary G

    That sounds delicious, and I’m not that keen on soup. My housemate and I are lusting after this ridiculously expensive for what we need Ninja 9-in-1.

    It’s a floor wax! It’s a salad dressing! or however that goes

    ETA

    Third try on the botched (by me) link.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Yutsano:  almost always

    I think I eat much more heathily in the winter because it’s so easy to get vegetables into soup, and it’s so easy to do a crock pot dump

  5. 5.

    James E Powell

    We’re not quite in soup season out here in Riverside County CA – high 90s and low 100s this week – but I will definitely bookmark these.

  6. 6.

    cain

    I made a beef stew, it was yummy – used a nice bordeaux wine. No potatoes though, I used yams instead. I’m trying to go on a keto diet – I really shouldn’t be eating red meat. Hopefully I will wean myself off of it eventually.

    I also made a delicious pound cake with coconut and almond flour and monkfruit sugar.. SO GOOD!

  10. 10.

    Shana

    I just recently got a multicooker because my 8 qt. slow cooker died. Actually the crock cracked and they don’t make replacements for that model anymore. I got rid of my smaller slow cooker, rice cooker and pressure cooker when I got the 8 qt. Zavor which I’m enjoying very much.

  11. 11.

    J R in WV

    I am not ashamed to admit that we had Rao’s chicken and gnocci soup the other day — I added garlic and italian herb mix and things like that — it was great. Also added some chicken broth, it was really thick. We both loved it.

  12. 12.

    J R in WV

    @Yutsano:

    …do you eat the skin or not?

     

    Depends upon the potato — do it not? If it’s a nice fresh potato without green tints to it, YES, with additional butter/sour cream/ cheese put into the shell of the crunchy skin.

    If it’s been in the pantry too long, then nope.

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yutsano:

    But now for the real question: do you eat the skin or not?

    Are you fucking joking me? The skin is the best part! Requires a fresh slathering of butter, a fresh grind of salt and pepper, cut off a chunk, fold it in half, pop it in your mouth.

    In fact, it could be argued that the entire baked potato is merely an excuse for the skin.

  16. 16.

    MagdaInBlack

    At some point this week I roasted grape tomatoes with garlic, so I heated them up in a sauce pan, stirred in some ricotta, and dumped it over pasta. That’s dinner, Ben ‘n’ Jerrys Americone Dream for later.

    Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins for music tonight.

  18. 18.

    Yutsano

    @J R in WV:  The only potato worth baking is a big russet a day or two from the store. I usually use Yukon golds for most of my cooking but if I’m going to actually bake a potato it has to be a nice starchy russet. For me no other potato matches that perfect fluffiness.

    I will say, however, that Yukon golds have totally changed my latke game.

  19. 19.

    JaySinWA

    @SiubhanDuinne: I try to, but lately the potato skins have had an off taste to me in some parts at least. A bit like mold in some cases, other flavors in others. Maybe they weren’t scrubbed well enough. ETA russets at least. We haven’t had many golds or reds lately.

  21. 21.

    Benw

    I always use veggie broth and I find that the Better than Bouillon brand lives up to it’s name and makes a top notch stock

  26. 26.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @Yutsano: The Canada US border’s still closed due to COVID, but find some stretch of water boundary and you can float over some of those latkes.

  27. 27.

    M31

    I’ve been enjoying potato/cheddar soup lately, and it’s super easy:

    saute a large onion in bacon fat (butter or oliveoil also fine)

    peel and roughly chop 3 lb# of potatoes

    slow boil with water to cover

    mash potatoes when done, I like it chunky

    add 1/2 lb of extra sharp cheddar

    salt/pepper to taste

    if you’ve got chives or scallions or bacon to crumble on there, more power to ya

  29. 29.

    evap

    The potatoes in Ireland are so much better than anything you can get in the U.S.   Baked, roasted, boiled…  all wonderful.  I always sneered at boiled potatoes, but when you start with a good potato, they are amazing.    Damn, now I want some Irish potatoes.

  30. 30.

    NoraLenderbee

    OT: Out on a bike ride today, we passed a Dump … cheering squad. A bunch of people, not enough to be called a rally,  with giant Dump flags and signs, on bridge over Highway 17 (at the junction with Black/Bear Creek/Old Santa Cruz, for you locals). Maybe 30 people? Right here in the People’s Republic. One black woman, the rest white.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    Made some Instant Pot mac ‘n’ cheese last week. Nothing out of the ordinary about that, except if I have any in stock I usually include a hefty chunk of cream cheese to it along with the other ingredients to provide, well, extra creaminess. Did not have any but did have a tub of spinach-artichoke-parmesan dip/spread which had picked up at a fire sale price at Costco so substituted a couple of heaping spoonfuls of that. Both thumbs up on the result.

  33. 33.

    The Golux

    I’ve been on the lookout for the perfect Portuguese Kale Soup for a while.  Ideally, it should have both white beans and potatoes, and guidance on the ideal sausage would be a plus.  We made one years ago that was perfect, but of course, did not take care to put the recipe in a place where we could find it.

    (ETA: As with any soup, the ingredient list is never cast in stone.)

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @The Golux: oh, that sounds good. You had me at “beans and potatoes”. And if it has kale it’s health food! could you approximate the sausage by mixing up herbs and spices (I’m assuming) with ground pork (again, assuming…)?

  35. 35.

    Abnormal Hiker

    @Yutsano:
    Random factoid: Yukon Golds are wonderful but they have nothing to do with Yukon. They were developed at the University of Guelph in Ontario in the 1960s.

  37. 37.

    No A.M.E.

    @J R in WV: Their pasta sauces are excellent also so I wasn’t surprised that their soups are good quality as well.  I still doctor them up though especially at this time of year with so much fresh basil and rosemary.

  38. 38.

    J R in WV

    @cain:

    That name Rao’s really cracks me up since it’s a name of indian origin. I don’t actually know if it is Italian or not.

    I know Rao is also an Indian name, I hired a guy named Pandit Rao many years ago. But the food is way Italian. Well done so, although I add more garlic and spices to their stuff.

  40. 40.

    J R in WV

    @NotMax:

    Wife would enjoy that, I’m not so much into moldy cheeses, even on purpose. My grandfather and uncles would visit relatives up in Ohio dairy country, and everyone would stop at Yoder’s dairy and pick up pounds of Swiss cheese. Big bricks of it.

    By the time it was all gone, there was blue, green, and white mold on the brick of Swiss. They all thought that was finest kind. I wanted my Swiss plain old cheese, no mold needed. But I would be willing to scrape it a little, and eat it however it was being used to cook.

    I like Mexican blend grated cheese on my bakers…

  44. 44.

    schrodingers_cat

    @J R in WV: Rao is an honorific for Brahmin men in many parts of India, like sir. Some Bengalis use an anglicized version, Ray. Like Satyajit Ray.

  45. 45.

    Gin & Tonic

    I know TaMara has issues with people who call out spelling errors or typos, but surely this

    • 2 tsp crushed garlic

    has *got* to be an error.

  46. 46.

    Narya

    I get a lot of puréed squash in the farm share, so I like to throw in garbanzos (or any bean!) and onions garlic and a Penzey’s mix (vindaloo or Bengal) and honey and maybe peanut butter and carrots and wild turkey (shredded slow cooked dark meat) and maybe some kale. Maybe some tomatoes. Okay so it’s not really a recipe…

  48. 48.

    karen marie

    Soup!

    I’ve been making black bean soup – pretty much have it perfected at this point, although I admit to feeling a tiny bit guilty that I use canned beans instead of dried beans.  I make a big batch, then bag it up into servings and freeze them.  I serve the soup topped with whatever fresh veg I have on hand – diced tomato, jalapeno, onion, corn (frozen if fresh is unavailable), avocado, and fresh cilantro — with a squeeze of lime, a big spoonful of sour cream, and a big pinch of shredded cheddar.  If I have leftover white rice, I’ll toss some of that into my bowl.  Also nice for a bit of crunchy fat is to fry strips of a cut-up tortilla to throw on top.  The amounts for the spices is a starting point – increase or decrease or leave out as you see fit/have on hand.

    I usually get 9 or 10 1-1/2 cup “servings”

    The soup:

    2 14-oz (or whatever that size is) cans of black beans
    1 14-oz (ditto) can of whole tomatoes, squished
    1 14-oz (ditto) can of chicken broth
    1 yellow onion, diced
    1 carrot, diced
    2 or 3 cloves of garlic, smashed
    1 or 2 jalapenos, diced
    1 red bell pepper (never been keen on green ones), diced
    1 or 2 pablano peppers, diced
    1 serrano pepper, diced
    3 tablespoons chili powder
    1 tablespoon of dried Mexican oregano
    1 teaspoon ground cumin
    1 teaspoon ground coriander
    a spoonful of chipotle in adobo (the Mexican grocery has chopped chipotle in adobo in a jar, saving me opening a whole can just to use one chipotle)
    salt to taste (I usually salt the veg and then add salt to the soup as it simmers after tasting)

    Saute the fresh veg, starting with the onion, to soften/get a little color in the bottom of the pot, toss in the spices, give it a stir, then dump everything else into the pot, stir, allow to low simmer for about an hour.  I declare it done when the carrot is soft.  At that point I turn off the heat and let it cool down to a non-lethal temp.  When non-lethal temp is achieved, I hit it with the stick blender and bag it up.

    It is absolutely marvelous hot or cold.

  49. 49.

    Fair Economist

    I’m making Chicken Ratatouille Skillet from Ellie Krieger’s Whole in One cookbook of one-pot/pan/skillet recipes. I did 3 recipes from an article and liked two of them, so I ordered it and I do like the recipes as they read – pretty healthy, pretty easy, lots of vegetables, and varied in source and style. Now my family will get to find out how they taste!

  51. 51.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Mind reader, TaMara! I love beef with barley soup but haven’t never made it.  The ingredients will go on next week’s list.

    But soup is on…tonight, cioppino (somewhat modified for what’s on hand), recipe is halfway soup and stew and matzoh ball soup tomorrow, when the high temp will be in the glorious 60’s.

  53. 53.

    laura

    I got about a pound and a half of rump roast today thinking it was time for a sunday slice with roasted and gravy and an excuse to make a pot of barley soup and then saw this post. Autumn’s surely upon us.

  54. 54.

    Aleta

    @Narya:  Sounds award winning.  The description too.

    Also made me remember Kenny Shopsin.

    A good soup makes you remember someone or place.

  56. 56.

    I'll be Frank

    sigh, after the Bangkok lime shrimp soup incident I can’t tolerate beef, or peppers (including paprika.) I just discovered that almost every brand of mayo has paprika, which explains a lot of suffering I couldn’t figure out otherwise.  It never entered my mind that there would even be the possibility that there was paprika in mayo.  How about a nice recipe with no beef, no crushed red peppers, no paprika, no Cajon mustard.  Maybe a nice ginger garlic miso?

  58. 58.

    guachi

    I am, right now, eating homemade split pea soup.

    2 carrots
    2 stalks celery
    1-2 onions (depends on how big they are)
    1 lb. dried split peas
    1-2 tbsp. butter
    1-2 tsp. kosher salt
    ¼ tsp. black pepper
    ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
    ¼ tsp. ground thyme
    2 bay leaves
    7 cups water

    Dice vegetables. Sweat in butter and kosher salt for 10 minutes.
    Meanwhile, put split peas, black pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme, bay leaves, and water in a pot a set heat to boil water. When water is boiling, turn to low, cover, and simmer for 90-120 minutes. When the vegetables are done sweating, add to pot.

    After 90-120 minutes, remove pot from heat, and remove bay leaves. Use a stick blender to puree soup. If desired, diced ham may be added to soup (after pureeing!). Or bacon (my preference) may be diced fine and cooled and sprinkled on each bowl. Bacon fat may be added to pot before pureeing.

  60. 60.

    Narya

    @Aleta: oh, someone I would have loved to meet! Calvin Trillin’s piece on him was wonderful, and there was a movie about him too, maybe on Netflix, that was so fun.

  65. 65.

    Narya

    @mrmoshpotato: there used to be a handball tournament there too, IIRC. Always wanted to go but I wasn’t a very good handball player and was broke and didn’t have a car so could never justify it.

  66. 66.

    Chetan Murthy

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Korean tofu soup

    As a confirmed meat-a-tarian, I feel compelled to note that Korean tofu soup is the BOOM.  Even without meat!  I know, I know, I know, some of you will be thinking “but tofu -soup-?  C’mon …!”  But seriously, it’s great, great, great stuff.  I loved it so much, I learned to cook it, some years ago.  Though I’m all out of ingredients, and loath to go to the Korean store, b/c ….. cramped aisles and I can’t believe the ventilation is good.  But damn, that’s some amazing soup!

  67. 67.

    WRRistow

    Pearl barley, right?  I think everyone but me has known this forever, but some years back I went to the supermarket for some barley to thicken a soup, and looked up barley, and kept finding dry grainy stuff that didn’t look right at all; and I was totally frustrated, not knowing what to look for or if what I wanted even existed.

  68. 68.

    planetjanet

    I made a nice lentil soup, Alton Brown’s recipe.  I actually followed the recipe this time, and it came out great.  One omission though, it called for a half teaspoon of grains of paradise.  I don’t even know what that is.

  70. 70.

    Chetan Murthy

    @MoCA Ace: Huh, I thought the answer was “no, you don’t eat the skin, but if you scoop out the insides, I’ll get rid of it for you, lickety-split!”

  72. 72.

    Sab

    I used to make a mushroom barley soup ( with bell peppers) that I haven’t made in decades. It was one of my favorites. I asked my husband if he’d like it. He looked sceptical. “Mushrooms the problem?” “Yep. They taste musty and their texture is slimy. Why risk it?” So that’s why I haven’t made it. I must have asked before.

    There is no accounting for taste preferences.

  74. 74.

    MoCA Ace

    It’s funny that all summer long I never have the desire for soup.  Frost has ended the growing season here and suddenly I’m pursuing the intertubes for soup recipes again.  The last few years I have been getting more adventurous with my cooking.  One of my favorite finds last year was pozol rojo.  I have been slowly introducing more heat to my cooking and have finally gotten my wife up to the point where our normal heat level in Mexican and Asian cooking will leave most Midwesterners lunging for the milk and dabbing sweat from their foreheads.  With pozol the sky is the limit… The first recipe I tried made me sweat and I had cut the amount of peppers in half!

  75. 75.

    Sab

    @MoCA Ace: Midwestern bland. I was a childhood thumbsucker, and back in the day there was a capsaicin extract that they used to paint on kids thumbs to get them to stop. (Child abuse.)

    As a result I can happily  eat spicy food that no one else in my family can handle.

    ETA: Isn’t plain bread or plain rice better than liquids for dealing with hot food?

  76. 76.

    J R in WV

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Nice to learn this… I don’t think my friend was a Bengali, but who knows, it was many years ago. I was assured that his actual name was many syllables longer than the name he was using in the US.

  77. 77.

    MoCA Ace

    @Sab:

    ETA: Isn’t plain bread or plain rice better than liquids for dealing with hot food?

    I have read that milk and other dairy products actually bind with some of the capsaicin and neutralizes it.

    A few weeks ago my 3 YO grandson, who is a born vegan, grabbed a Thai chili off the plant and started nibbling on the end.  I warned him it was real “spicy” but he said it wasn’t… he just hadn’t hit the membranes in the middle where the capsaicin is found.  His older brother grabbed it and took a huge bite then handed it back to his brother who did the same.  Hilarity ensued as they both raced to the house for milk and ice cream.   I give the younger grandson credit… he didn’t even cry.

  78. 78.

    J R in WV

    @I’ll be Frank:

    …after the Bangkok lime shrimp soup incident I can’t tolerate beef, or peppers (including paprika.) I just discovered that almost every brand of mayo has paprika, which explains a lot of suffering I couldn’t figure out otherwise. It never entered my mind that there would even be the possibility that there was paprika in mayo. How about a nice recipe with no beef, no crushed red peppers, no paprika, no Cajon mustard.

    Dude, I just examined a bottle of Hellman’s Mayo – THERE IS NO PAPRIKA IN MAYO!!!  None. Hellman’s is known as Best in the west, but same recipe. Hellman’s is one of the favorite mayo brands in the US.

    NO Paprika!! Mayo is WHITE, and paprika is red. So You are either nuts, or ill-informed, or something. Otherwise, I feel for your inability to eat flavored foods. Best of luck!

  79. 79.

    frosty

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Beans and potatoes? Look up Potaje de Garbanzos. I think I had it in Barcelona once and I’ve seen a Cuban recipe that includes chorizo. One of my faves. Even though I’m supposed to be cutting my carbs I sneak it in for dinner on a day when I’ve gone light for breakfast and lunch.

    Carbs. I miss bagels and pasta. And pears.

  80. 80.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @The Golux:

    Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street has a good recipe for white bean soup with kale and sausage. Just saw a rerun of the episode the other day, but I don’t remember if it has potatoes.

    I can’t find an unblocked copy of the recipe, but you can search for “milk street kale and white bean soup” and maybe get to it if you have a Pinterest (or Boston Herald?) account. I will say that you can get access to Milk Street either by giving your email address or getting a 12-week trial subscription for a dollar. But even the full membership is only $20 a year—very much worth it, in my opinion.

  81. 81.

    Sab

    @MoCA Ace: Dairy. That is good to know. I do know water or tea don’t work. I am lactose intolerant, but sometimes you have to pick the better of two bad choices.

    My mother always told me that food is weirdly personal. Tied to your biology, tied to your ethnic heritage, tied to your geography.

    ETA she also thought that people should be adventurous ( sic?) except at breakfast. That should be home.

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    From the recipe description:

    Fresh Portuguese linguiça sausage lends meatiness as well as bit of spice; if it’s not available, Mexican chorizo works well in its place. We skipped the potatoes used in traditional versions of the soup, and we mash half of the beans to lightly thicken the broth.

  84. 84.

    Proudgradofcatladyacademy

    Made vegan greek lemon soup today. It’s thickened with small amount of risotto rice, and a tahini miso lemon paste. I threw some chickpeas in it, really surprised at how tasty it was!

  85. 85.

    NotMax

    Too some hours to do so but have finally stopped the inner peasant from shuddering at the thought of tomatoes in beef barley soup.

    Real peasant beef barley soup requires soup bones, not only for thickening but to enjoy sucking out the marrow after preparation.

    ;)

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