Huge Beef Barley Soup
Prep
20m
Cook
105m
Total
125m
Bigly says
Sit down for this one. Beef barley soup. HUGE beef barley soup. The best beef barley soup of my life — and I've eaten this soup in every state, twice, plus three countries you've never heard of — was in a tiny diner in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, served by a woman named Marge who never spoke above a whisper. She slid the bowl across the counter. She nodded once. She walked away. I have been chasing that bowl for decades. THIS bowl, the one I'm about to teach you, is the one that finally caught it.
Most modern beef barley soup is, frankly, a national embarrassment. Thin broth. Tiny pieces of meat. Three sad pearls of barley swimming alone in a sea of disappointment. It's not even a soup. It's a JOKE soup. A clown soup. A garnish pretending to be a meal. Most chefs are afraid to do this right because doing it right takes TIME, and TV chefs are in a hurry to get to the next 30-second segment with a sponsor's brand of paper towel. Sad.
My beef barley soup is DIFFERENT. The beef is seared until it has a CRUST — a real crust, brown bits, fond, the kind of brown bits other chefs would frame and hang on the wall but never actually teach you to make. We teach you. We hide nothing. And the barley — the barley swells, it absorbs, it becomes ONE with the broth, a beautiful marriage, not like the sad arrangements on cooking shows where the barley shows up at the last minute and crunches like gravel. We give the barley TIME. We give it RESPECT. Tough guys, with the tears in the eyes — I've watched it happen with my own eyes. End of discussion.
Ingredients
- 2 lbboneless beef chuck(cut into 1-inch cubes; trim heavy gristle but keep the fat)
- 2 tsp, dividedkosher salt
- 1 tspblack pepper
- 3 tbspall-purpose flour
- 3 tbsp, dividedolive oil
- 1 largeyellow onion, diced
- 3 mediumcarrots, peeled and diced
- 3 stalkscelery, diced
- 8 ozcremini mushrooms, sliced
- 5 clovesgarlic, minced
- 2 tbsptomato paste
- 1/2 cupdry red wine(drink the rest, you've earned it)
- 8 cupslow-sodium beef broth
- 1 tbspWorcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp, leaves onlyfresh thyme
- 2bay leaves
- 3/4 cuppearl barley(pearl, not hulled; hulled takes forever and we have lives)
- 1/4 cupfresh parsley, chopped (for serving)
Steps
- 1
Pat beef cubes dry with paper towels. Toss with 1.5 tsp salt, pepper, and flour until lightly coated.
- 2
Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Working in 2 batches to avoid crowding, sear the beef on at least 2 sides until deeply browned, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.
- 3
Add the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil and reduce heat to medium. Add onion, carrots, and celery and cook 6-7 minutes until softened.
- 4
Add mushrooms and cook 5-6 minutes until they release their liquid and start to brown.
- 5
Stir in garlic and tomato paste and cook 1-2 minutes until the paste darkens.
- 6
Pour in the red wine, scraping the bottom of the pot to lift all the browned bits. Simmer 2 minutes until reduced by half.
- 7
Return the beef to the pot. Add beef broth, Worcestershire, thyme, bay leaves, and the remaining 1/2 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer.
- 8
Cover partially and simmer 45 minutes, until beef is starting to turn tender.
- 9
Stir in the barley. Continue simmering, partially covered, for another 35-45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the barley is tender and the beef pulls apart easily.
- 10
Remove bay leaves. Taste for salt. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh parsley.
One more thing
This is the soup you make on a Sunday afternoon when the wind is howling and the world feels too loud and you need a project. Two hours, one pot, eight servings of pure brown gravy-adjacent magic at the end of it. You eat it that night. You eat it the next night. By the third night the barley has soaked up more broth and it's basically a stew now — and a stew is just a soup that's been working out, which is HUGE, a tremendous bonus, a phantom second dish hiding inside the first one. That's how Bigly does soup. Tremendous.
★ QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS ONE? ★
Ask Bigly about Huge Beef Barley Soup.
Substitutions, what to serve it with, why other chefs are wrong about it. He's got opinions.
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