Chicken and leek barley soup
A warm chicken soup with soft leeks, carrots and pearl barley.
About 55 min · 405 kcal · 36 g protein per serving
Mushroom, barley and thyme soup
A dark mushroom soup with barley and thyme.
By The foodose editorial team. Nutrition calculated from USDA FoodData Central. Checked on paper on 20 September 2026; not yet cooked in a test kitchen or photographed, so the times and yield are estimates. How we develop our recipes
What still needs a real kitchen
- Confirm pearl barley is tender in 32 to 38 minutes
- Photograph the finished bowl
- Time
- About 1 hr 5 min
- estimated
- Serves
- 2
- see below
- Energy
- 405 kcal
- per serving
- Protein
- 20 g
- per serving
Ingredients for 2 servings
Check off ingredients as you go.
Contains gluten, milk. Check the labels on packaged ingredients:
- vegetable stock. Vegetable stock often contains celery, and some contain milk or gluten; check the label, especially if you need it vegan.
Cooking steps
Slice the mushrooms thickly. Heat half the oil in a wide pan until it is properly hot and brown the mushrooms in two or three batches, leaving each batch undisturbed for 2 minutes before turning. Set them aside.
Add the rest of the oil, lower the heat and soften the diced onion and sliced garlic for 8 minutes.
Add the barley, the thyme and the stock and simmer, partly covered, for 32 to 38 minutes.
Return the mushrooms and warm through for 5 minutes.
Serve with the yoghurt spooned on top and the parsley scattered over.
The useful detail
Brown the mushrooms in batches. A crowded pan steams them in their own liquid, and once a mushroom has stewed there is nothing left in it to give the soup.
Make it work for you
One serving is A deep bowl with a spoonful of yoghurt. You can switch to a smaller portion in the ingredients above; it is three quarters of this, and it contains correspondingly less energy and protein. It is an option, not a goal.
Quark instead of Greek yoghurt
Thicker and sharper.
Per serving: about the same energy, about the same protein, about 1 g less fat.
Spelt instead of pearl barley
Chewier, and about 5 minutes longer.
Per serving: about 5 kcal less, about 2 g more protein, about 1 g more fat.
Leave out the yoghurt
Darker and cleaner, and the soup becomes vegan.
Allergens: Removes milk.
Estimated nutrition
Per standard serving, calculated from the ingredients above. Nutrition changes with substitutions, brands and how much oil stays in the pan.
A soup where a whole grain gives the body, so there is no need for cream, and the yoghurt on top adds protein rather than fat.
| Energy | 405 kcal |
|---|---|
| Protein | 20 g |
| Fat | 12 g |
| of which saturates | 2 g |
| Carbohydrate | 61 g |
| of which sugars | 12 g |
| Fibre | 12 g |
| Sodium | 1,350 mg |
Show calculation notes
Each ingredient’s weight is multiplied by its USDA FoodData Central values per 100 g. The whole recipe is added up and divided by 2. Raw weights are used for meat, fish and vegetables; beans and lentils are drained weights. All of the oil is counted as eaten. Added salt is not included; sodium from stock, bread, cheese and tinned food is.
| Ingredient | Weight used | Source | Energy | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mushrooms | 500 g | FDC 169251Mushrooms, white, raw | 110 kcal | 15.4 g |
| olive oil | 18 g | FDC 171413Oil, olive, salad or cooking | 161 kcal | 0.0 g |
| onion | 120 g | FDC 170000Onions, raw | 48 kcal | 1.3 g |
| garlic | 10 g | FDC 169230Garlic, raw | 15 kcal | 0.6 g |
| pearl barley | 100 g | FDC 170284Barley, pearled, raw | 352 kcal | 9.9 g |
| fresh thyme leaves | 1 g | FDC 173470Thyme, freshA teaspoon of thyme leaves weighs 0.8 g, under 1 kcal on FoodData Central 173470. That record has no sugars value, so the leaves are listed here rather than counted, which keeps the recipe's sugars calculable. | · | · |
| vegetable stock | 880 g | FDC 171583Soup, vegetable broth, ready to serve | 44 kcal | 2.1 g |
| Greek yoghurt | 100 g | FDC 170903Yogurt, Greek, plain, lowfat | 73 kcal | 9.9 g |
| parsley | 10 g | FDC 170416Parsley, fresh | 4 kcal | 0.3 g |
| Whole recipe | Divided by 2 | 806 kcal | 39.7 g |
Per serving the energy is rounded to the nearest 5 kcal, grams to the nearest whole gram and sodium to the nearest 10 mg. Ingredients marked “Not calculated” are excluded and could add at most 1 kcal to the whole recipe. Calculation method 1.0, September 2026. How the calculation works.
Storage and reheating
- In the fridge
- Cool it quickly, cover and refrigerate within 2 hours. The FDA chart gives soups and stews 3 to 4 days. The barley swells overnight and turns it almost into a stew; loosen it with stock.
- In the freezer
- The same chart gives soups and stews 2 to 3 months in the freezer for best quality.
- Reheating
- Reheat until it reaches 74°C / 165°F, steaming hot throughout, stirring so it heats evenly.
Checked against US Food and Drug Administration, Refrigerator and Freezer Storage Chart, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Leftovers and Food Safety, FoodSafety.gov, Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures and FoodSafety.gov, Cold Food Storage Chart. UK guidance from the Food Standards Agency is shorter, at two days for most leftovers.
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