I know I just posted this week about the beautiful summer weather and eating summery foods, but for today’s recipe, I went quite the opposite direction. I made this beef barley soup – perfect for a cold winter’s day. I love my fresh and bright summer recipes (and I have many more coming), but I will always enjoy a nice hot bowl of soup too. And did you know – eating hot soup on a hot day actually helps you cool down. You can check out my other recent soup recipe here – Chickpea Noodle Soup.

There is something so wonderful about beef barley soup. It has lots of fresh veggies, tender pieces of beef and perfectly chewy barley, all in a wonderfully flavoured broth. The recipe I used today is from The Clean Eating Couple blog (link here).

It was very easy to make this soup, using the instant pot. It just starts by browning the meat in a little olive oil for a flavour base, then you add all the remaining ingredients and then pressure cook. The meat was so soft and the barley was cooked to perfection. As well, the vegetables are all nicely cooked but not mushy. Everything has their own distinct textures and the flavours became one.

Another great thing about this recipe is that it gives cooking instructions for the instant pot (which I used), as well as for slow cooker and stovetop. So no matter what cooking equipment you own, you can make this soup! Serve with some crusty bread and dinner is done!

The one thing I would have liked about this soup is if it were thicker. So maybe I could have increased the amount of barley or decreased the amount of broth. The flavour was delicious though and I will happily make this again.