Tell me about barley.

[Anonymous]

Title says it all. I think of barley as something I should be adding to my soups or breads. I've never bought it or cooked/baked with it. What should I know about barley? Do you have a favorite recipe that uses it?

[Anonymous]

Mushroom barley soup. Also good in salads.

[Anonymous]

Beef barley soup or stew. It's really easy to cook with; look for cooking time on the box and you can add it to a soup recipe for that much time at the end of cooking. Just remember that it swells a bit upon cooking when you're deciding how much to use.

[Anonymous]

I made barely as a side dish for a while. It was pretty good. Then we got sick of it.

[Anonymous]

You can make it into a hearty risotto type dish just like arborio rice, pilafs, as an add-in in soup. Have not done any breads though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Beef barley soup or stew. It's really easy to cook with; look for cooking time on the box and you can add it to a soup recipe for that much time at the end of cooking. Just remember that it swells a bit upon cooking when you're deciding how much to use.

+1 soup only. It's astonishingly bland but good for you.

[Anonymous]

It contains gluten.

[Anonymous]

Love it in chicken or beef stews and soups.

[Anonymous]

You can use it in most salad / side dish recipes that call for Farro although the taste is more bland and less nutty

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can use it in most salad / side dish recipes that call for Farro although the taste is more bland and less nutty

Use a mix of broth and water to make less bland. It swells more than rice - I think the water:grain ratio is more like 3:1 than rice's 2:1.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thanks for these ideas!

[Anonymous]

Here's a great summer salad with barley & corn:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/recipes/jans-barley-corn-salad/9377/

[Anonymous]

Barley turns me into a poop machine. Clean as a whistle.

[Anonymous]

I cook barley in chicken stock and then toss in pesto like it was pasta. Good on it's own or with shrimp tossed in.

[Anonymous]

I boil it, then toss it w butter/olive oil and Lipton onion soup mix. I then put it in a baking dish, throw it in the oven and toast for about 15 minutes.