It comes out just as tasty if you put most of the ingredients in the pot (cubed meat, bay leaf, carrots, celery, onion, mixed veg's, beef buillon, stewed tomatoes, black pepper and water) and slow cook it for 10 hrs or so, then add the barley and salt during the last 20 minutes of cooking. MUCH simpler this way and saves time from the original recipe.
Great recipe! I used stew meat instead of the roast, and used 4 cups canned beef broth (ready- to-serve kind, not condensed kind) instead of the water and bouillon cube. Thanks to a previous reviewer's recommendation, I put all ingredients except barley and salt in crockpot and cooked it on low for 10 hrs., then added the barley and salt during the last 20 minutes. This greatly simplified the recipe! (I had hoped it might be done at 8 hrs., but the veggies were still slightly crunchy, so 10 hrs. is the right length.)
Excellent and easy. I cooked 2 lbs. of chuck in crockpot for 5 hours the evening before I wanted to serve the soup. (Sprayed crockpot with Pam first.) After cooking, I smashed the beef into shreds (in the crockpot with a spoon.) Then, after sauteeing the vegetables, I put everything in the crockpot (including the uncooked pearl barley) and put the crock in the frig. I skipped the sugar, and used 2 extra cups of beef broth plus a couple generous dashes of Worcestershire Sauce. When I woke up the next day, I turned the crock on low and cooked the soup all day. Everyone loved it! I will make this again and again. After reading a few of the other reviews, I'm wondering if some of the reviewers who complained about mushy barley had inadvertently used instant barley in their soup. Whole pearl long-cooking barley holds up much better than instant barley.
This is a lovely recipe and here's an EASY way to do it. Buy a couple pounds of stew meat (I cut it up even smaller than the butcher does) and put it in the crockpot the night before and sprinkle some Montreal Steak seasoning on it. The next morning, put four cubes of beef bouillon, sugar, fresh garlic, crushed tomatoes (not stewed), bag of frozen mixed veggies and the four cups of water. (Will probably come to the top of the crockpot.) Cook on low for 10+ hours and in the last hour or so, add the barley. This is a mainstay at our house and even my 14 month old likes it!
As others have done, I put everything in a crock pot, double the barley, use beef broth instead of water and bullion, and add additional veggies (a package of frozen broccoli crowns, 2-3 potatoes, diced, and 2 cans of chopped green chiles). I also use stew meat, cut into bite-sized pieces and brown it with the onion, worcestershire and ground black pepper before adding to the crock pot. The barley doesn't go in until the last hour. Great recipe, a favorite at home and hunting camp. It is even better on the second and third day.
I followed another reviewer's advice and put everything in the slow cooker right from the start. I omitted the celery and carrots as the frozen mixed vegies were enough. I used a 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes and doubled the broth. It was ready after 8 hours. An absolutely wonderful soup! My kitchen smelled great all day long.
Wow - thank you so much for an excellant base recipe for beef barley soup. i have been trying for a while to get a beef barley that tastes like my dear mothers - and nothing compared! I used this recipe as a base and it is PERFECT - upon reading lots of the reviews, i decided to cook everything in a crock pot - all at the same time except the barely which went in the last hour! my changes were such -using 10 cups of beef stock (home made) / used 4 bay leaves / less carrot and celary because of the frozen veggies / added 4 cloves of garlic / used crushed tomatos instead of stewed / added worshestershire sauce - about 1 tablespoon / and added fresh herbs which my mom always said makes the difference - added thyme / parsley / oregano AND basil. Upped the pearl barley to ONE CUP - to compinsate for the extra stock. cooked for 10 hours as alot of reviews stated on low in my crock pot. YUM YUM YUM Y UM YUM! were were licking our bowls clean and i cannot wait to eat more! it is perfection!
Margo, your recipe for beef barley soup was great! I added a bit more barley, and cubed some potatoes, and added basil and worchester sauce.The smell was awesome, and its full of veggies, which is good for the kids.Thanks for taking the time to post this great recipe.
This soup was good, with some modifications. There wasn't enough barley, too many vegetables. I recommend scaling the carrots and celery down. Also, like another reviewer, we added thyme, oregano, basil, and worsheshire sauce for some flavor. Also, I would have preferred diced tomatoes instead of stewed, they were hard to eat with a spoon. But with these slight changes, the soup was delicious and the beef was very tender!
The was better then I expected--especially since the directions are so poorly written. I added two cans of beef broth to the roast and cooked it on low while I was at work. When I came home I removed the roast from the slow cooker to cool and poured the broth into a large measuring cup to skim the grease. (A chuck roast is really fatty--good flavor, but you gotta drain the grease.) Once the grease is skimmed add water or more beef broth to total the liquid required in the recipe. Also, almost all the frozen mixed veggies in the store have carrots already in them--obviously you don't need to add fresh carrots if they're already in there. I ended up just adding some frozen corn, green beans and peas seperately. This was really meaty, I guess cause normally I add a pound, pound and a half of meat to my soup/stew, and this calls for a three pound pot roast. You could use a smaller roast but my family thought the extra meat was the best part.
