During this cold weather, we craved a hearty, vegetable-heavy soup. We tried this recipe: https://www.sipandfeast.com/mushroom-barley-soup/. This was a tasty, healthy, and satisfying meal.
Our modifications: first, we slightly increased the fresh mushrooms to 1 lb cremini, 4 oz shiitake, and 4 oz oyster mushrooms. We washed them, dried thoroughly with dish towels, removed the stems, and diced the mushroom caps.
Second, we couldn’t find dried wild mushrooms; we used 8 dried shiitakes and reconstituted them in hot water for 30 mins, saving the mushroom liquid (3/4 cup). We thoroughly dried the reconstituted mushrooms, removed the stems, and diced them and added them to the diced fresh mushrooms.
Third, we used 10 cups beef broth, using a combination of 8 cups (2 quarts) no-salt broth and hot liquid (3/4 cups mushroom liquid plus 1 1/4 hot water) mixed with 2 tsp Better Than Bouillon beef broth concentrate. (For this reason, our soup was plant-forward but not vegetarian.)
Fourth, instead of regular rolled barley, we used 1 cup quick-cook barley. This enabled us to reduce the simmering time to approx. 30 mins.
Fifth, in lieu of white or red miso, we used 2 tsp Korean fermented soybean paste (doenjang). When tasting the soup at the end of cooking, we added 1 tsp red wine vinegar for balance (see Note below). (Dec. 2025)
Note: We also added a dash of sugar, but that seemed a mistake in retrospect because it somehow muted the umami from the soybean paste).
Cooking Adventures 