This vegan mushroom barley stew is a comforting meal for a cold day. It can be prepped and frozen in advance, and dumped in the crockpot to be ready in time for dinner on a busy day!
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I’ve definitely been getting ready for spring with some of my recent recipes (asparagus and peas, anyone?), but TBH it’s not really spring yet in Minnesota. We’ve had a few 50+ degree days, but recently the days have been damp and chilly.
So obviously I’m seizing the opportunity to prolong soup season in our house. This Mushroom Barley Stew is just perfect for a cold spring day, and it’s pretty much the easiest soup I have on here!
Part of what makes this stew so easy is that it’s a crockpot “dump meal” or a slow cooker freezer meal or whatever prepped-in-advance title you want to give it.
In a nutshell, these meals entail gathering the ingredients, storing them in a bag in the freezer, and never thinking about them again until you dump it all into the crockpot for a quick meal.
So easy, I know. The most challenging part of the process is remembering to take the bag out of the freezer to thaw it in the fridge a day before you want to make the meal.
But if you can master that, then you will be good to go! (I find cell phone alarms/reminders to be particularly helpful…)
Craving more crockpot recipes? Check out my Veggie Loaded Slow Cooker Mexican Chicken, Rosemary Honey Slow Cooker Beets, and Slow Cooker Butternut Squash Brown Rice Risotto while you’re here!
How to Make Slow Cooker Mushroom Barley Stew
Mushroom Barley Stew is pretty short on ingredients (no complaints here). All you need is:
- Mushrooms (duh)
- Barley, uncooked (duh)
- Mirepoix: carrots, celery, onion
- Garlic
- Dried thyme
- Bay leaf
- Veggie broth
How can something with such simple ingredients be so flavorful? Beats me. All I know is that the slow cooker is a magical tool that makes things taste so yummy and comforting. If you haven’t dusted off that bad boy in a while, now is the perfect opportunity.
If you want to freeze this meal to make at a later time, you need to quarter the mushrooms, chop the carrots, celery, and onion, mince the garlic, and measure out the dry barley. Dump all of that into a freezer bag.
I personally like to use reusable Stasher bags. Throw on a label that tells you what ingredients to add when you put it in the slow cooker (thyme, bay leaf, broth), and BOOM. All done.
You can also make this all at once. Just skip the whole freezing then thawing thing.
Tips for Serving, Storing, and Reheating
This recipe makes about 4 large servings, so depending on how many people you’re feeding, you may want to store some of it in the fridge or freezer. It will keep well in the fridge for 5-7 days.
Just reheat it in the microwave for ~2 minutes on high, or on the stove over low heat (be careful not to scorch it). You can also freeze the soup, thaw in the fridge overnight, and reheat it in a saucepan on the stove over low heat until it’s heated through.
Keep in mind that barley is fairly starchy and may absorb more liquid the longer the stew is stored. You can add some water or broth before reheating if you desire.
Oh, and BTW, it goes REALLY well with crunchy sourdough bread. YUM.
For other mushroom recipes, check out:
- Roasted Kohlrabi Steak with Mushroom Sauce
- Garlic Thyme Roasted Mushrooms
- One Pot Mushroom Spaghetti
If you make this recipe, I’d love to hear how you like it in the comments below!
Slow Cooker Mushroom Barley Stew
Ingredients
- 1 yellow onion - diced
- 3 large carrots - sliced
- 3 stalks celery - sliced
- 3 cloves garlic - minced or pressed
- 16 oz white button mushrooms - quartered
- 1 cup pearled barley - dry
- 8 cups vegetable broth
- 1 bay leaf - can add 2 for more flavor
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon salt - more to taste
Instructions
- Dice the onion and garlic, slice the carrots and celery, and quarter the mushrooms. If you are prepping this in advance to make at a later time, add these ingredients to a freezer bag with the dry barley. Add a label with the other ingredients you need and how long it will cook in the crockpot. Put it in the freezer and pull it out to thaw in the fridge a day before or the morning of the day you want to make the meal.
- Add the veggies and barley to the slow cooker with the broth, bay leaf, dried thyme, and salt. Stir, cover, and cook for 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.
- Taste the soup before serving, and add salt or pepper to taste. Enjoy warm with crunchy bread!
Notes
- This is intended to be a light and nutritious soup option, so you may find that you want to add or adjust the seasonings to your preference. If you are looking for more of a kick, add some lemon juice, fresh herbs, parmesan cheese, and/or hot sauce. Other seasoning ideas include garlic or onion powder, oregano, marjoram, and other dried Italian herbs.
- Store in the fridge for 5-7 days. Reheat for ~2 minutes in the microwave, or in a saucepan on the stove over low-medium heat. You can also freeze this soup for up to 3 months in an airtight container. Thaw in the fridge overnight.
- The barley will absorb more water the longer it is stored, so you may have to add a bit more liquid (water or broth) when reheating. If the soup gets congealed in the fridge, reheating it in a saucepan with a splash of liquid helps it return to its original consistency.
- Depending on your crockpot, the soup may take longer than mine did to cook and thicken. Check the progress of the soup at 3 hours on high, or 6 hours on low, and cook for longer as needed.
- Also, if you use hulled barley, the soup will likely take longer to cook than if you use pearled barley like the recipe suggests.
Nutrition
Happy weekend!
Lizzie
Hello! I added a can of drained white beans, some chopped kale and around 1.5 cups of rehydrated Nutrela soy chunks. It was great–thank you!
Hi Susan, I’m so glad to hear that you enjoyed the recipe!
I love the simplicity of ingredients and no oil! Eager to make it this weekend. When you wrote about freezing everything in a bag, you included dry barley. When would you rinse that barley before cooking it?
Hi Kanti, I hope you enjoy this recipe!! You can rinse and dry the barley before placing it in the bag for freezing.
Would super helpful to include the size of crockpot this batch is designed for, so we know how much to cut it down by if we have the smaller crockpot versions:) Apologies if you’ve mentioned it somewhere and I missed it! Gonna wing it and hope it works:)
Hi Macy, thanks for the comment. I use a 4.5-quart crockpot. This recipe should work in any slow cooker that size or larger, but I don’t know about smaller crockpots. Would love to hear how it goes for you!
I made this with wild oyster mushrooms and it was excellent. Working outdoors all winter I see myself bringing a thermos of this stew for lunch at least twice a week. Hopefully the oyster mushrooms will be abundant for the next few weeks so I can pick and freeze enough fo rthe whole winter.
Hi David, that’s great to hear! I think this soup sounds like the perfect thing to eat to warm up when you’re at work this winter! Thanks for letting me know. I will need to try it with oyster mushrooms.
Made this. Easy to prepare. Delicious!
That’s great to hear!! Thanks for rating the recipe!
This was wonderful, easy and flavorful! I added an old Parmesan rind to release Parm flavor as it cooked, and fished it out at the end. I also added a few shakes of dried oregano and basil at the beginning, and some red wine vinegar and pepper at the end. Delicious!
Hi Elise, that’s great news! I’m so glad that you enjoyed it, and I bet the Parmesan rind added amazing flavor. I love doing that with soups! Thanks for sharing your great additions.
I made the soup following the directions and found it to be a bit watery so I added a cornstarch slurry to thicken it which helped a lot. Great and easy recipe. Thanks.
Glad to hear cornstarch helped and that you enjoyed the recipe. Thanks for the comment! 🙂
While this was wildly easy, I found it a bit bland if I can be honest. I did love how EASY and healthy it was. The kids loved the smell as we piled in the door from a long school day and evening of sports. The aroma was excellent and they happily gobbled their bowls. I found it a little uninspiring and ended adding some fresh lemon to help give it a kick, and later some hot sauce. Overall on the day, it was made it was great. Unfortunately, it made a huge batch that does not keep well and became very congealed in the fridge. Nobody would eat it after the day of, except me who was stuck downing it for days. I don’t think this one will become a staple for us.
Hi Kate, thanks for your feedback. In my experience, the soup does get congealed from the barley absorbing water, but reheating it over low-medium heat in a saucepan with a splash of water or extra broth helps it return to the original consistency. Just in case you make it again in the future.
I freeze my extra soup in family serving size containers.
This is a great recipes for a cold winter day.
So glad you enjoyed it! I actually made this recipe yesterday too…it was so chilly! Thanks for rating the dish.
Hi Lizzie -This is awesome! Followed your recipe exactly in terms of ingredients but had to adjust cooking level and time. This was my first use of a new slow cooker and it runs much hotter than my previous one. After two hours, I cooked on low for one hour, then simmer for an hour. When it switched to warm, I added some very hot water a few handfuls of torn baby spinach and some fresh chopped dill. Dinner is heavenly tonight!! And since I’m cooking for one, I plan to freeze enough containers for future meals and for gifting to my noncooking friends. Thanks for posting a perfect dish I will cook again and again .
Hi Janice, I’m so glad to hear that and thank you for letting me know!! I’m so happy you enjoyed it tonight and plan to freeze for later meals! Yes, the newer slow cookers can really cook things quicker than expected. And the addition of dill and spinach sounds fantastic! Thanks again and have a good week :-).
Hi,
I only have pot barley and not pearled. How would this impact the recipe other than the texture of the barley? Should I add more liquid? Thank you!
Hi Jessika – you should still be able to use regular (pot, also known as hulled) barley. However, this type of barley takes longer to cook than pearled barley, so you may need to keep the soup in the crockpot for longer. Hope that helps, and hope you enjoy the recipe!
Hi, I have heard Bay leaves should be added near the end to a slow cooker meal to prevent from overtaking the flavor. Do you suggest this?
Thanks!
Hi Kim, great question. I have always added them at the beginning of my slow cooker recipes that have them, but I remember when I tested this recipe in particular I was using pretty old bay leaves, so they may not have had as robust of a flavor as fresher bay leaves. I think if you have pretty new bay leaves and are concerned they may add too much flavor, you could add them in the last third of the cooking time or 60-90 minutes before the soup is finished. Hope that helps!
I’ve had this in the slow cooker for the last 4.5 hours in high and it is super watery, not as thick and lovely as your picture 🙁 pitty as I was making it for a friend who really needed dinner tonight.
Hi Katie, oh no! I’m not sure why that would have happened. Was the barley tender when you checked it at 4.5 hours? If not, it may just have needed more time to cook and absorb the liquid. Depending on the type of slow cooker you have, it may take longer to cook the barley. Sorry to hear it didn’t turn out!
Thanks for the tip on the Stasher bags. Would this recipe fit in the half gallon bag?
Hi Karen, yes it should fit in there. It will be pretty snug, but it has all fit into a 1/2 gallon bag for me in the past. Hope you enjoy the recipe!
Hi! It would be super helpful if you could update the nutritional info, as everything reads 0. Thanks so much…looking forward to trying this.
Hi Becca, thanks for bringing that to my attention! A recent update to my recipe cards was causing the error. I fixed the card to provide nutrition info per 1 serving (the recipe makes 4 large servings, 6 smaller ones). Hope that helps and hope you enjoy it!
Hello- what is considered a serving? One cup? Two cups?
Hi Stephanie – approximately 2 cups of this soup is a serving (it serves about 4). If you were eating it as a side dish, then ~1-1.5 cups would be a serving and it would feed ~6 people. Hope you enjoy it!
Barley is not gluten free. So, this is a bit misleading. If someone has Celiac’s Disease they can not eat barley without adverse reaction. If they are not allergic, but avoiding gluten, then this is just misleading. It sounds delicious though. I am searching for recipes for Easter. One person has Celiac’s Disease, one is vegan, one has a dairy allergy. Such a challenge.
Hi Carole. May I ask where you saw that this recipe was gluten free? As an RD, I am well aware that barley is not gluten free and that there can be adverse reactions to it. I did not put that it was gluten free anywhere in the text. Did you see this recipe referenced somewhere else as being gluten free? Please let me know as I would like to ensure this is not being shared somewhere with wrong information.