Mushroom-Barley Soup

By Mark Bittman

Mushroom-Barley Soup
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Total Time
45 minutes
Rating
4(1,471)
Comments
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Soup made without meat or meat broth can be insipid. That's why most people think pea soup needs ham and mushroom-barley soup needs beef. But it's possible to make a satisfying, even hearty, vegetarian soup if you choose your ingredients carefully and extract every bit of flavor from them. Enter this mushroom-barley soup, a vegetarian dish with real body, texture and depth of flavor. The key ingredient here is dried porcini, which can be reconstituted in hot water in less than 10 minutes, giving you the best-tasting mushrooms you can find outside the woods and an intensely flavored broth that rivals beef stock. Don’t forget to toast the barley while really browning the mushrooms and carrots — it lends a deep warmth.

Featured in: THE MINIMALIST; Beefy Soup Without The Beef

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings
  • 1ounce dried porcini mushrooms (about 1 cup)
  • 2tablespoons olive oil
  • ¼pound shiitake or button mushrooms, stemmed and roughly chopped
  • 3medium carrots, peeled and sliced
  • 1cup pearl barley
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1bay leaf
  • 1tablespoon soy sauce
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)

362 calories; 8 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 5 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 68 grams carbohydrates; 14 grams dietary fiber; 4 grams sugars; 11 grams protein; 393 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Soak porcini in 3 cups very hot water. Put olive oil in a medium saucepan and turn heat to high. Add shiitakes and carrots, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to brown. Add barley, and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until it begins to brown; sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Remove the porcini from their soaking liquid, and reserve liquid. Sort through porcini and discard any hard bits.

  2. Step 2

    Add porcini to pot and cook, stirring, for about a minute. Add bay leaf, mushroom soaking water and 3 cups additional water (or stock, if you prefer). Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer; cook until barley is very tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Add soy sauce, and taste. Add salt if necessary and plenty of pepper. Serve hot.

Ratings

4 out of 5
1,471 user ratings
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Comments

Linda

I've discovered pearl barley absorbs liquid and continues to do so.....it will no longer be a soup tomorrow. Try using real barley....takes a bit longer to cook, but is healthier and doesn't turn you soup into a stew.

kitchenonfire

Oh, and I threw in a Parmesan rind while it was cooking. It added a nice extra dimension of flavor.

BERFB

This was good, but needed tweaking. I added a good splash of cognac as my first liquid. I used a beef stock instead of the water and added fresh thyme with the bay leaf. This definitely needs several grinds of fresh pepper at the end.

Cathy S.

I made this today after reviewing the cooking notes. Thank goodness that I did or it would have been so bland. I added in leeks and 2 cloves of garlic. Used beef stock and added in a little brandy. In addition, some white miso (instead of soy sauce). It still needed a lot of tweaking. Turned out to be good, but I don't usually have to make that many changes to a NYT recipe..

Andy in Dallas

10/21/2024 Had a lovely broth from Coronation Chicken Salad, plus a pound of shiitakes from Jimmy’s Food Store, so this recipe seemed to be a good match. Very good. The porcinis really give flavor. I used farro instead of barley, and like some reviewers describe with the barley, overnight it turrns into a bit of a porridge. I don’t mind though, it’s easy enough to thin it with boiling water.

Pete

Did all that was advised - roasted carrots and a whole onion and whole head of garlic first, used mix of dried mushrooms, toasted the barley, added wine to mushroom stock, added Parmesan rind and thyme from my garden… and it was just blah. Cooked the pearl barley almost 2x what was recommended. Don’t think it is worth making again!

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