Beef and Barley Stew
Melting-tender beef chunks, perfectly cooked barley, and all the hearty veggies one can ask for. Best of all, this beef and barley stew recipe is freezer-friendly!
I know. I’m sorry, guys. It’s a lot of soup recipes lately, but that’s all I’ve been eating lately!
But hey, if a recipe calls for wine in a cozy, hearty soup with some crusty bread, are we really going to say no?
I didn’t think so.
Plus, we have the most amazing melting-tender beef chunks here with perfectly chewy-nutty barley that soaks up all that stew-y goodness.
The house will smell so good, I bet you can’t wait until the 45 minutes are up when your barley has cooked through. Some peeking is okay, but make sure you keep that lid covered for faster cooking.
And my favorite part is that this is completely freezer-friendly! I made this right before I left for the holidays and coming home to this soup was everything I needed to feel right at home.
That and an extra glass of wine with my soup.
Beef and Barley Stew
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 ½ pounds top sirloin steak, diced
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 medium sweet onion, diced
- 3 medium carrots, peeled and diced
- 2 celery ribs, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups sliced mushrooms
- ⅓ cup dry red or white wine
- 8 cups beef stock
- 1 cup pearled barley, rinsed
- 5 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Season steak with salt and pepper, to taste. Add to the stockpot and cook, stirring occasionally, until evenly browned, about 6-8 minutes; set aside.
- Add onion, carrots and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 3-4 minutes.
- Add garlic and mushrooms, and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender and browned, about 3-4 minutes.
- Stir in wine, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the stockpot.
- Stir in beef stock, barley, thyme, bay leaf and steak. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, covered, until barley is tender, about 45 minutes. Remove and discard thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Stir in parsley; season with salt and pepper, to taste.*
- Serve immediately.
Notes
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This is a keeper! The house smelled incredible and the stew was delicious . Definitely will make again and again. I doubled recipe and used only 12 cups stock. It came out perfect! The barley needed to cook longer but I just kept trying it until it was done. Served it with a wonderful country loaf bread. Excited for the leftovers!! As I know it will be even better!!
That’s great!
Excellent recipe. I dont keep wine in the house but came across a beef broth with red wine! Perfect.
Thanks for this recipe
Awesome!
This stew (soup) was Damn Delicious! I made about 1/2-2/3 of the recipe size for my hubby and me, and we got 1 dinner and 2 lunches out of it! And it just got better as the days went on! Will definitely make this again this Winter!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing.
What are the calories and nutritions for this recipe
Nutritional information is provided only for select recipes at this time. However, if it is not available for a specific recipe, we recommend using free online resources at your discretion (you can Google “nutritional calculator”) to obtain such information. Hope that helps!
Great flavors and textures. Didn’t change a thing but added a can of cannillini beans. Added this to my recipies of great soup.
Awesome, Tom!
Mine came out more soup than stew as well and I used only 7 cups of broths not 8 – trying to cook off some of liquid with lid off but may add some Wondra to thicken
What is Pearled Barley? And where exactly in the grocery store would I find it? Thank you.
Pearl barley is the most common form of barley. It has been processed to remove its hull and bran. It can be found in the grain aisle with the rice, beans, couscous, quinoa, etc. I hope that helps, Tammy!
I made this recipe tonight and wow is all I can say. the flavours are incredible. My husband loved it too. It’s a keeper. I did thicken it up abit as it was more like soup than stew but what a fantastic recipe. As well, I used dried thyme as I didn’t have fresh. thanks Chungah for another fantastic dinner idea.
Thanks, Maggie!
How much dried thyme? If this was summer, I’d have all the fresh thyme I need growing in my container garden!
Patti, 2 sprigs of fresh thyme will yield roughly 1 tablespoon thyme leaves, depending on the size of the sprigs. Using the typical ratio of 1:3 dried to fresh, you would then want about 1 teaspoon dried thyme for every 2 sprigs of fresh thyme. I hope that helps!
So good. Well worth the time you spend anxiously waiting for the stew to finish cooking!
I made this for dinner last night. The kids and I really loved it! I left out the mushrooms and thyme because I am allergic, but even without these, it tasted GREAT!
That’s great!
Quick question, what brand of beef stock do you like? Excellent recipe as usual!
I do not have a certain kind that I prefer. Any brand should work just fine. Hope that helps, Michelle!
Thanks. This was really amazing stew.
Made it tonight! Wonderful. I did use half stock half broth because I didn’t have enough. Tasted great!
We’re happy you liked it!
My hubs does not like soup, but he loves beef stew so I cautiously brought this up to him hoping he would go for it LOL he was game so I made it tonight. I am not a fan of wine so I left that out and doubled the recipe. I did use roast that I cubed because I had it on hand and I coated the meat in flour for browning….glad I did it came out nice and thick just like we like it! Can’t wait to eat it again tomorrow! Be prepares for wondrous smells throughout the house! Couldn’t wait to eat it!!
Yes. Love this, I’ve been making similar concoction (that uses harissa to spice things up) for years now! Beef, barley, veggies…perfect for the winter! Thank you for sharing, Chungah 🙂
Thank you!
I’m not a fan of mushrooms in soup. What can I sub for them, or should I just omit them?
You can omit. 🙂
Haven’t tried it yet but was wondering about the timing of doing it in an Instant Pot.
What a great idea! But unfortunately, without having tried this myself, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment when making substitutions and modifications.
My exact question. Any suggestions for time?
I just made mine yesterday in the IP and it was awesome (DELICIOUS recipe by the way!)j
I sauteed everything as the recipe called for and once everything was put together, I used the soup function for 20 minutes. It was PERFECT. The barley was done but still had a bit of a bite to it, not all mushy. I let it release naturally about halfway before I got impatient and quick released the last 7 lbs of pressure.