Comforting Ground Beef and Barley Soup

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This Comforting Ground Beef and Barley Soup is perfect if you’re tired of rich holiday food. And this is a delicious low-glycemic soup with ground beef that whole family will enjoy. Use Soup Recipes to find more tasty soups!

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I love this time of year when one year is winding down and another is beckoning with possibilities.  If you’re one of the many people thinking about losing a few pounds in 2012, the days between Christmas and New Years may be kind of a planning phase.By now you’ve likely had enough rich holiday food, and you could be thinking about getting started on the South Beach Diet or another low-carb or low-glycemic diet plan, but you’re not be quite ready to take that step yet! I recommend this Comforting Ground Beef and Barley Soup as way to get you thinking about healthier food choices again as you contemplate the new year.

I made this soup when I got home from California a few weeks ago and was coming down with one of those winter cold things you often get when you’ve been on an airplane. I love making soup with whatever I find in the freezer or fridge, and this Ground Beef and Barley Soup was one of those happy experiments that turned out to be a real winner. The soup has both vegetable and beef broth for richness of flavor, and barley is one of my favorite comfort-food ingredients that’s also very nutritious. If you haven’t tried barley in soup, I bet you’ll be surprised how tasty it is in this Ground Beef and Barley Soup!

And if you’d like a low-carb version of this soup, check out Instant Pot Low-Car Ground Beef and Cauliflower Soup, which is just as delicious!

Start by browning the ground beef (called beef mince if you’re in Europe) in a small amount of olive oil. I like ground beef in soup, but I don’t like the flavor of beef fat so I like to rinse the cooked ground beef with VERY HOT water before I use it in the soup. This is optional and might not be necessary if you’re using lean beef. Another option for removing excess fat from soup with ground beef is using a Stock Skimmer like this one to scoop the fat off when the soup is cooking.

Put the rinsed beef back in the pan, then push it to the side, add a little more olive oil if needed, and saute the onions and garlic. Add the beef stock and vegetable stock (or canned broth), dried parsley, and dried thyme and simmer the soup for 30 minutes. After the soup has simmered for 30 minutes, add the carrots and celery and simmer for 30 minutes more.

Even though I rinsed the ground beef, there is now a little bit of fat on the top of the soup that I’ll skim off with the stock skimmer. Then add the barley and cook about 30 minutes more.  (You may want to add a little water at this point if you think it needs it.) Cook the soup until the barley is done but still slightly chewy, then stir in the balsamic vinegar, season to taste with salt and fresh ground black pepper. Serve Ground Beef and Barley Soup piping hot and enjoy!

More Comforting Soups with Barley:

Barley Minestrone with Canadian Bacon, Savoy Cabbage, and Rosemary  from Kalyn’s Kitchen
Mushroom Barley Soup with Miso and Kale from TasteFood
Colombian Barley and Pork Soup from My Columbian Recipes
Turkey Barley Soup from Kalyn’s Kitchen

Weekend Food Prep:

This recipe has been added to a new category called Weekend Food Prep  to help you find recipes you can prep or cook on the weekend and eat during the week!

Print Recipe

Comforting Ground Beef and Barley Soup

Yield: 4-6 servings

Total Time: 110 minutes

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 90 minutes

This Comforting Ground Beef and Barley Soup is perfect for dinner and the whole family will enjoy it!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. lean ground beef (use beef with less than 10% fat for South Beach Diet)
• 2 tsp. + 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 T minced garlic (or less if you’re not that crazy about garlic)
• 6 cups homemade beef stock (or use 3 cans beef broth and a little water to make 6 cups)
• 4 cups vegetable stock (or 2 cans vegetable broth and a little water to make 4 cups)
• 2 tsp. dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
• 1 cup finely chopped celery
• 1 cup finely chopped carrots
• 1/2 cup pearl barley
• 1-2 T balsamic vinegar (add 1 T, then taste to see if you want to use more)
• salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat 2 tsp. olive oil in a large dutch-oven type pan; then saute the ground beef until it’s cooked through and lightly browned.
2. If desired, put the ground beef into a fine mesh strainer and rinse with VERY HOT water to remove the fat.  (This is optional, but I think it improves the flavor and it makes the soup lower in fat.  If you don’t have a fine mesh strainer, you can skim off some fat when the soup is cooked.)
3. Put ground beef back in the pan, push to one side, add 1 tsp. more olive oil (if needed) and then saute the onions and garlic until they are starting to soften.
4. Add the homemade beef stock , vegetable stock, dried parsley, and dried thyme and let soup cook at a low simmer for 30 minutes.
5. While soup simmers finely chop the carrots and celery.
6. After 30 minutes, add chopped vegetables to the soup and simmer for about 30 minutes more.
7. Then add the barley and simmer for an additional 30 minutes. (Before you add the barley you may want to skim off any fat that’s floated to the top, especially if you didn’t rinse the ground beef.  You may also want to add a little more water at this point.)
8. When the barley is done but still slightly chewy, turn off heat, stir in the balsamic vinegar, season soup with salt and fresh ground black pepper, and serve hot.

Notes:

This soup freezes or reheats well, although the barley soaks up the liquid so you may want to add water when you re-heat it.  It’s family-friendly, and uses ingredients you may often keep on hand, so you may want to make a double batch for winter meals.

Recipe created by Kalyn.

All images and text ©Kalyn Denny for Kalyn's Kitchen.

Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
This Comforting Ground Beef and Barley Soup would be phase 2 or 3 for the South Beach Diet, due to the carrots and barley. If you wanted to make a lower-glycemic (and lower carb) version of this recipe, you could use more beef and celery and omit the carrots, but soup with barley will always be too high in carbs for a strict low-carb diet plan.

Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use the Recipes by Diet Type photo index pages to find more recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You might also like to Follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there.

Nutritional Information?
If you want nutritional information for a recipe, you can sign up for a free membership with Yummly and use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information. Another option is entering the recipe into this Recipe Nutrition Analyzer, which will calculate it for you.

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