Slow Cooker Beef Barley Soup

Inside: This slow cooker beef barley soup is a slow cooker soup like none other. The tender chunks of stew meat and the juicy broth filled to the brim with vegetables are comfort food at its finest.

Other soup recipes that we love include this easy Crockpot potato soup with frozen hash browns and one of my personal favorites, this Crockpot broccoli cheese soup Panera copycat soup.

Old Fashioned Vegetable Beef Barley Soup

Confession time: Vegetable beef and barley soup was my favorite Campbell’s soup as a kid. I actually remember being embarrassed by the fact because it had peas in it and what kid likes peas?? Too funny!

Now as an adult, I still love a Campbell’s beef soup with barley as much as I ever did, but I know that I can get the same barley beef soup made in a huge batch that I can share with my red meat-loving husband and kids that I can in the silver can. And, the great news is that it will cost the same, or maybe even less than it would if I were to buy several cans of the popular soup. Bonus, right?

My beef barley soup recipe entails several ingredients. However, I can promise you that you likely have almost if not all of the ingredients somewhere in your kitchen.

This list of my slow cook beef barley soup includes:

• butter
• stew meat
• frozen diced onion (or fresh, up to you)
• minced garlic
• Italian seasoning
• tomato sauce
• tomato paste
• beef broth
• russet potatoes
• celery
• frozen mixed vegetable blend (carrots, corn, and pea mix)
• pearl barley

And the even better news is that this barley and beef soup recipe comes together basically in that order.

How much time will I need to prepare this beef & barley soup recipe?

To prepare this slow cooker beef soup with barley you really don’t need much time. The hands-on prep time is basically for browning the stew meat and cutting the potatoes and celery. If you use the pre-cut frozen veggies like I do then your prep time is really minimal.

H2 What do I serve with this beef barley slow cooker soup?

My hubby is not a huge carb lover, so he just eats the soup (easy, right??) Our kids love carbs (like their mama!) so I always serve rolls with this soup.

I love the Rhodes rolls and bread loaves as well as the Hawaiian Rolls with this stew. Top those with some warmed butter… yum!

How to make this recipe: Beef Barley Soup Instructions:

Heat butter in a large nonstick pot. I have this Ninja 4-in 1 that has a stovetop for browning and a Crock Pot in one. If there is one small appliance that I absolutely use all of the time, it’s this pot!

A similar one but made by the Crock Pot brand is this one, also fantastic!

Add meat and cook until golden brown on all sides

Add onion, garlic, Italian seasoning until fragrant still over a low flame.

To the meat, onion and seasoning mixture add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, and beef broth. Mix in potatoes, celery, carrots, peas, corn and barley. Simmer on low for 25-30 minutes.

Move mixture to slow cooker and cook on low setting for 2-4 hours until the stew meat is the tenderness you desire. My stew was ready to serve in two hours.

** The leftovers for this stew are very thick. You can always add more beef broth to thin it down if you wish.