Chilly days mean warm hearty soup! Did you know that January is National Soup Month? I didn’t know until my sister brought it up to me.

I’ve been making a lot of soups lately including, most recently, my recipe for Butternut Squash Apple Ginger Soup made in the Instant Pot.

Check out all the soups, stews, and chilis on my blog if you like right HERE. A couple of my quick and easy stove-top soup favourites are: Healthy Carrot Orange Ginger Soup and Dutch Vegetable Soup with Meatballs.

For whatever reason, my husband, Scott, was in the mood for Instant Pot Beef Barley and Mushroom Soup.

I’ve known this man since we’ve been in high school together; I’m not telling you how old I am, but fun fact: Scott and I share the same birthday (year and all!). Anyway, I’ve have never seen him order or make this soup ever.

So I asked him why and he said, that he had totally forgotten about it. Apparently, he never had it growing up, so it never came to mind. When we got our Instant Pot, we were looking around for ideas of what to make in it.

Following the success of our other Instant Pot recipes, I wanted to try a more classic beef soup and this one really hits the spot. Now, it’s Scott’s favourite Instant Pot creation to date.

How do you make this soup?

Prepare by measuring, slicing, and chopping the ingredients in the soup. Ingredient amounts and full instructions down below in the recipe card.

Cut the stewing beef into 1-inch beef pieces, making sure to remove the super tough gristle (cartilage that won’t break down). Season with salt and pepper and brown all sides.

Fragrant onions, garlic, and mushrooms that were sauteed in the pot then deglazed with beef broth and splashed with a little balsamic vinegar.

All the ingredients (veggies, barley, dried herbs, and browned meat) are added to the pot. Top it off with beef broth and water (not shown).

Seal and cook under high pressure for 25 minutes with at least 15 minutes of natural pressure release before quick release. Open and you’ve got a yummy soup!

This heartwarming beef barley mushroom soup:

• Is comforting, flavourful, and filling: It’s cozy comfort food that warms you up on these cold, wintery days and nights.
• Simple to prepare and one-pot (Instant Pot that is): Clean-up is a breeze.
• Is full of tender, small bits of brown stewing beef that are full of savoury, umami flavour.
  • Chuck roast is a preferred cut since it has great flavour and lots of fat and connective tissues that will break down as it stews into super tender and scrumptious bites.
  • However, I often lazy out and buy the meat labelled stew beef at the supermarket. Look for pieces that are uniform in appearance. At home, I always go through, remove excess gristle (very tough, inedible cartilage tissue that won’t break down), and cut the pieces down to similar sizes before browning and stewing.
• Contains delicious pearl barley: this versatile grain is slightly chewy with a nutty flavour. It bulks up this thick and hearty soup.
• Is rich with fresh vegetables and mushrooms: It has the wonderful and colourful combination of aromatic onion, garlic, carrot, and celery as well as cremini mushrooms (baby bella are great too), which has a lovely earthy flavour and meaty texture to it.

I hope you try this delicious soup recipe! If you do, please leave me a rating and comment down below or tag me on any of my social media. I’m @yay_for_food on Instagram. I’ll love a picture!

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