I know another recipe with mushrooms, but please stick with me for one more(for now). When I bought the mushrooms for my stroganoff it made me hungry for another dish with them so I bought extra and with winter not stopping anytime soon or at least for me I thought I’d make this soup. Most of this recipe comes from a book I got years ago “Herbs for Health and Healing” by Kathi Keville, it’s a great informational book with helpful recipes that give you a great way to live a healthier life all with the benefits of herbs. `
This recipe calls for Shiitake mushrooms but I used Crimini/cremini also known as “baby bellas” work just as well in my book and are a little cheaper. They still have some vitamins but these great mushrooms have a significant amount of beneficial bacteria that help you out in your gut improving your digestive tract and immune system.
The benefits of this mushroom are so amazing but combine it with barley and it really is a healthy hearty soup that also warms you up. Barley is a whole grain so it does have clean proteins, vitamins and minerals but it also has soluble and insoluble fiber again hello happy gut and lower blood sugar.
With just two major ingredients this is hardy cheap soup making it easy on the bank account. This also makes a good amount, yay great for left overs and doesn’t take much time. The longest amount of time is the cooking of the barley and that is around 45 minutes but if you wanted to do it ahead then it would take around 30 minutes prep and cook time.
Mushroom Barley Soup:
1 cup Barley
5 cup of Veggie Broth
1/2 cup of White Onion chopped
4-5 cloves of Garlic diced
1/2 pound of mushrooms cut
1-2 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
Black Pepper and Salt per taste
In a large pot put 1 cup cleaned barley and 2 1/2 cups of veggie broth cover and simmer on low about 45 minutes. While the barley is cooking wash and cut up mushrooms, chop onions and dice garlic. In a frying pan add olive oil, onions, garlic sauté
then add washed chopped mushrooms to pan to sauté the mushrooms
When the barley is cooked add the sautéed mushroom, onion and garlic to the pan with the barley add remaining 2 1/2 of broth. Cook on a low simmer for about 20 minutes.
Serve and enjoy.
