Another delicious winter warmer of a soup. The barley adds substance to this soup while the vegetables add lots of flavour.
I’m really enjoying having different soups each week as the flavours and textures tend to be quite different and really wake up the taste buds. I’m also getting a lovely selection of vegetables towards my five-a-day.
I’ve added onion, celery, carrot, parsnip and potato into this soup but you can add any vegetables you like including squash, sweet potato, frozen peas or spinach. It really is a matter of what vegetables you have on hand at the time and what vegetables you like. As the soup isn’t pureed you should make sure to make all of the vegetable pieces quite small and evenly sized. I also added a tin of cannellini beans but you can leave them out or substitute for butter beans or even chickpeas if you like.
This soup like most other soups will store for a number of days in the fridge but can also be frozen. Freezing soup in individual portions is great as you can just take out one portion for lunch.
Winter Vegetable and Barley Soup
Ingredients
- 20 g butter
- 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 2 sticks celery
- 1 onion
- 4 carrots
- 1 parsnip
- 2 potatoes
- 150 g barley
- 1.5 ltr stock
- 1 tin tomatoes
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 stalk thyme
- 1 tbsp mixed herbs or herb de Provence
- 1 tin butter or cannellini beans
Instructions
- Using a sieve, rinse the barley under running water to remove any dust or debris.
- Chop the onions, celery, carrots and potatoes into small evenly sized pieces.
- Heat the oil and butter and saute the onions, celery and carrots for 5-10 minutes until the onions are soft.
- Thinly slice the garlic and then add to the saucepan and saute for a further 2 minutes
- Add the parsnip, potatoes, tinned tomatoes, stock, barley, tinned beans and herbs and bring to the boil
- Simmer for 40 minutes until the barley is soft.
- Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Serve with crusty bread
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