Here’s a recipe for a delicious Instant Pot mushroom and barley soup that’s super easy to make. Filled with natural goodness and cooks up in an Instant Pot pressure cooker in less than an hour.
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The Perfect Easy Recipe for your Instant Pot
I absolutely love making fresh homemade soup recipes in my Instant Pot. They’re easy to make and there’s nothing quite like having a nice hot bowl of soup that you’ve made from scratch. Soup recipes are also great starter recipes for anyone who’s just getting started with instant Pot cooking. They’re very forgiving and the results are almost always excellent. This mushroom barley soup uses barley, fresh mushrooms, fresh carrots, fresh celery, onions, a few simple herbs and broth to to create a hearty soup you can call all your own. Making soups with an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker is awesome because you can do so much with it in so little time.
Simple Ingredients
We love recipes that are easy to make and use simple ingredients. You probably already have lots of the ingredients already in your pantry and spice rack. Naturally mushrooms are one of the stars of the show. Baby bella or white mushrooms are your best bet. They both provide a great texture with a flavor profile what works so well with the barley and other ingredients. Pearl barley is the other featured ingredient of the soup. Make sure to use the regular barley and not the quick cook kind.
Ingredients include:
- White or baby bella mushrooms
- Pearl barley
- Onions, celery, carrots
- Vegetable broth
- Marjoram, sage, parsley
- Bay Leaves
- Salt and pepper
Soup starts with a mirepoix base
This soup recipe starts with a foundation of onion, carrot and celery. This is commonly refereed to as Mirepoix. This combination of ingredients are the base of so many delicious recipes, and for this mushroom barley soup, it all starts here. Once we’ve diced our onion, carrot and celery, we add them to the Instant Pot and use the “sauté” setting with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Once the oil is hot, we add our vegetable mix and sauté for 4 minutes. The carrots and celery will get a bright orange and green color and the onions will start to become translucent. And the smell is awesome too! Then, we add in the sliced mushrooms and continue sautéing for another 3 minutes.
Building the Soup Flavor
After we’ve sautéed everything, it’s soon time for the other star of the show, the barley. But first, we press cancel to stop the sauté mode and add in the 4 cups of vegetable broth. You can use your favorite brand vegetable broth. After the broth is added to the pot, use a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pot. This is called deglazing and basically just gets any little bits of the sautéed vegetables off the bottom. And it’s a flavor that also adds to the whole experience. Then, it’s time for the barley. We’re only using a half cup of barley, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but trust me, it’s plenty! Those little grains grow a lot when cooked. Finally we stir in our herbs. A ½ teaspoon of each makes it all easy to remember. We’ll use parsley flakes, marjoram, and rubbed sage. This blend of herbs works so well with the mushrooms and barley. It brings a nice full, comforting and earthy flavor, without being to overwhelming in any particular direction. You can also add salt and pepper to your liking. I actually like to use a whole teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper and about ¾ teaspoon of kosher salt. But feel free to adjust the salt and pepper to your liking.
Pressure Cook for 20 minutes
Ah, the beauty of pressure cooking! While many soup recipes can take several hours on the stovetop or slow cooker, our Instant Pot gets the job done in a fraction of the time. With all the ingredients now loaded into the pot, secure the lid, set the vent to “sealing” position and pressure cook (on high pressure) for 20 minutes. Once the cooking time is up, let the pressure naturally release for 10 minutes, before quick releasing the remaining pressure.
Ready to serve
Carefully remove the lid and use the ladle to stir everything, as well as to fish out the bay leaves. Your soup is now ready to serve.
Recipe
Instant Pot Mushroom Barley Soup
- Total Time: 40 mins
- Yield: 6-8 cups
Description
A delicious and hearty Instant Pot mushroom barley soup that’s easy to make and loaded with fresh ingredients.
Ingredients
- 8oz mushrooms, sliced
- 4 cups vegetable broth, low sodium
- ½ cup barley, pearled
- 2 celery stalks
- 1 carrot
- ½ onion, diced
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon marjoram
- ½ teaspoon sage
- ½ teaspoon parsley flakes
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 bay leaves
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Set Instant Pot to saute setting and add olive oil. When oil is hot, add carrots, onions and celery. Saute for 4-5 minutes or until onions are just becoming translucent. Then add mushrooms and continue sauteing for another 3 minutes.
- Press cancel to stop the saute cycle and add vegetable broth. Use a wooden spoon to deglaze the bottom of the pot (scrape the any cooked-on bits). Add herbs, barley, salt and pepper. Stir well.
- Secure lid and cook on manual (pressure cook) on high for 20 minutes.
- Let natural release for 10 minutes, then quick release the rest. Remove lid, remove the bay leaves and stir. You’re now ready to serve.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Category: Soup
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
Cheryl says
Can this recipe be doubled in a 6 qt Instant Pot?
Patti says
Due to my lack of cooking skills, most recipes I try out either turn out to be “meh” or end up getting thrown away and I order out for pizza. This one actually rocked! It was so good to the point that I couldn’t wait to eat the leftovers for 3 days straight.
The only thing was it was a bit too salty for me (which is maybe why it tasted SO good, lol) but that was likely due to the broth that I used. I will just get the low-sodium broth and maybe add a cup of water to dilute a bit.
Any idea if this freezes well? Can’t wait to make this again….and again. Thanks for an amazing recipe that boosted my cooking confidence!!
Jackie Kline says
Soup was delicious! I substituted beef bone broth for the vegetable broth and cut the pepper in half.
Served it over fresh spinach and topped with some freshly grated parmesan cheese. Excellent!!!!
RecipeTeacher says
Oh that spinach and Parmesan cheese sounds awesome! I’m going to have to try that! Thanks for the feedback, Jackie!
Victor Beaumont says
I liked it, but I thought the black pepper in the recipe overpowered the soup. I made it again with half the amount of pepper in the recipe and it was still spicy – for me. But if you like pepper, this may be the soup for you.
RecipeTeacher says
Tha is for the feedback, Victor. I’m definitely guilty of being a pepper guy. 🙂
Bonnie says
I bought my InstantPot 18 months ago and have been pretty intimidated by it. I’d used it maybe twice before trying this soup. This recipe is foolproof and delicious. I am intimidated no more! Will be making this regularly. My 16 month old son begged for it.
RecipeTeacher says
Hi Bonnie. Glad you finally got comfortable with your Instant Pot. They’re great for making soups. Thank you for the feedback!
Laura says
This is to die for. I can see this being a standard recipe to make
RecipeTeacher says
Thanks, Laura!!
Tabitha says
I can only find “quick” pearled barely, will this still work?
RecipeTeacher says
I’ve not tested with the quick cook barley. My thoughts are that it would not work the same.
Bonny says
I’m just starting to use my instant pot. Your instructions were clear and easy to follow. The soup was great. My only change was to add 3 cloves of garlic. Thanks.
RecipeTeacher says
Thanks for the feedback, Bonnie. My biggest goal in starting the site was just what you mention – to have clear and easy to follow instructions. Glad you like the soup!!
Amy D says
We just had this soup for dinner. My daughter, who are 4 and 6 years old, are currently on their second bowl. They absolutely love it. They said I was the best cook ever and they want me to make it this weekend when we visit their grandparents. I am looking forward to getting more recipes from your site. Thank you so much.
RecipeTeacher says
And I thank YOU so much for the feedback, Amy. I’m working on some more great soup recipes that fill debut in the fall. Thank you again!
-Jason
Amy D says
My 6 year old daughter just asked me for a third bowl! What a hit! 🙂
RecipeTeacher says
I love it!!
gary says
Do you have a clam chowder recipe?
gary says
Sounds very good. Do you have a clam chowder recipe?
RecipeTeacher says
Not yet Gary but lots more recipes on the way.