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
Barbara
This soup is amazingly hearty & delicious! So easy with all cooking steps in the Instantpot. I did not have marjoram, so used Italian seasoning. I used baby Bella mushrooms. Definitely going into the winter soup rotation!
★★★★★
RecipeTeacher
Thanks so much, Barbara! Your substitutions are perfect. Oh baby bella mushrooms are SO good! I love that deep, earthy flavor. So satisfying. 🙂
Thank you for the feedback!
Chava Cohen
I make this almost weekly for my soup loving hubby.
Double it most weeks too.
★★★★★
Lorilou
I wish I could remember the name of the place. I worked at 101 N. Wacker and it was next door. This was in the mid- to late-80s. (BTW, my cousin, and your friend, Marianne G. recommended your website for Instant Pot recipes and I am so glad she did!)
RecipeTeacher
That’s so cool! Marianne is one of my favorite people!
Lorilou
Oh yeah, Marianne is awesome and a lot of fun!
I’m looking forward to trying more of your recipes! After I make the pulled pork for the third time with the huge pork butt in my freezer, I’m going to try the Creamy Cilantro Chicken Thighs next, then the Broccoli Beef!
Lorilou
This was so good and so easy to make! I did use half beef broth and half vegetable broth and added some small beef chunks because I wanted it to be a beef-mushroom barley like I used to get in a deli in Chicago many, many years ago. Delicious!
★★★★★
RecipeTeacher
Awesome! What Deli? I’m from Chicago too.
Jill
If I double the recipe, do I keep the pressure and release times the same?
MY entire family absolutely loved this soup!
RecipeTeacher
Thanks Jill! Yes indeed the cooking and release times are the same.
Annie
Our local markets have been out of barley for months (who knew?) so I substituted teenie tiny farfalline no 95.. Instead of the marjoram, I used some herbs de Provence just brought from a friend who was in France.and added Trader Joe’s Umami mushroom seasoning. The soup is delish but probably a completely different version from your original. No matter, thank you!
★★★★★
RecipeTeacher
Wow! Sounds like your substitutions worked out great!!
Lydia S
Yum. Two thumbs up. I am licking my bowl. 😁. I omit the oil and used a bit water for sauté. Add some diced potato into the mix. I didn’t add the salt & pepper because the soup is good as it is. It will be in my regular rotation.
★★★★★
RecipeTeacher
Yay! I love this soup too. And I love hearing feedback about it. Thanks so much Lydia!
Rachael
This was very flavorful, thank you for the recipe!
★★★★★
RecipeTeacher
Thanks for the feedback, Rachael! I love this recipe too. Soups in the Instant Pot are a lot of fun to make.
Cheryl
I only made 1x the recipe. Still wondering if you think I could double the recipe in my 6 qt Instant Pot?
RecipeTeacher
Shouldn’t be a problem.
Cheryl
I doubled the carrots, used extra large celery, a medium onion, and 1/4 tsp pepper. I seasoned with salt as I was sauteeing the vegetables and then tasted when finished cooking to adjust salt to taste. This was good, easy and filling. Thanks for the recipe.
★★★★★
RecipeTeacher
Awesome! Sorry I didn’t get a chance to respond before you made it, but sounds like it went perfectly. Thanks for the feedback, Cheryl!