This easy chicken barley soup recipe makes a hearty savoury porridge that thickens as the barley expands. This warming one-bowl meal was created to use up leftover rotisserie chicken but you could always use shredded poach chicken breasts. It’s super versatile and could easily be used to clean out the vegetable drawer.
You’ll love this chicken barley soup recipe for a hearty savoury porridge if you cooked and enjoyed my vegetable barley soup recipe. It’s what we call ‘same same but different’ here in Southeast Asia, and along with that vegetarian barley soup, Southeast Asian rice porridges and rice soups were partly my inspiration for this recipe.
Another motivation was the fact that we had leftover rotisserie chicken and I wanted to use whole chicken pieces rather than shredded chicken. (By the way, we have more leftover rotisserie chicken recipes here.) We always have poached chicken breasts in the fridge; we use the poaching liquid as stock and pull the chicken apart to use in shredded chicken salads.
This chicken barley soup recipe is versatile. Use a vegetable stock instead of chicken stock and leave the chicken out for a vegetarian barley porridge, and use it as a clear-out-the-fridge recipe as I did with the original vegetable barley soup and add other vegetables and herbs. And while I’ve made this with the density of a porridge, you could always thin it out to feed a crowd.
If you enjoy hearty soups and savoury porridges as much as I do, do browse our compilations of soup recipes. We have collections of chicken soups, noodle soups, chicken noodle soups, fish soups, warming winter soups, and cold summer soups.
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Chicken Barley Soup Recipe That Evolves Into a Hearty Savoury Porridge
My easy chicken barley soup recipe will make you a savoury porridge that starts out as a soup, but thickens as the barley expands and the chicken stock reduces, and that’s exactly the way I love this dish. But it’s nothing if not versatile and if you’re feeding a crowd you could certainly thin it out with stock or water to make a soup of the consistency of our vegetable barley soup.
The inspiration was Southeast Asian style rice porridges – we’ve lived in Southeast Asia for 12 years, after all, so it’s hard to escape that influence, even when I’m developing Australian and European inspired recipes – flavour-wise this is very much an Eastern European style dish, with its fresh dill and sour cream, however, you could easily change that.
I’ve used a little ground paprika and turmeric – just enough to add warmth and earthiness – but you could substitute those spices with more Western European herbs or Mediterranean herbs or Asian spices and herbs, and completely transform the dish.
Tips to Making this Chicken Barley Soup Recipe
Like my vegetable barley soup recipe, this chicken barley soup recipe is incredibly versatile. I’ve kept this simple and excluded the potatoes and cabbage I had in the original vegetable barley soup, but you could always add other veggies, especially if you were using less chicken, or skipping the chicken altogether.
This is a fantastic clean-out-the-vegetable-drawer dish, as you can really throw anything in the pot, such as wilted Chinese leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, squash, fennel, beans, peas, and so on.
Just keep in mind that if you want to keep the texture of an Asian style rice porridge and keep this to under an hour of cooking you’ll need to finely dice the vegetables.
My chicken barley soup recipe will make you warming one-bowl meals that cook in less than an hour. You’ll get four mid-sized bowls, although you could stretch it to six or even eight small bowls if you’re serving it as a starter to a warming wintery meal.
And while I created this recipe to use up leftover rotisserie chicken, you could always use shredded poach chicken breasts. Poaching chicken breasts is quick and easy and if you do that before you start cooking the barley, you can use the poaching liquid as your chicken stock.
If you’re sticking to the Eastern European flavours of the dish, spoon on a dollop of sour cream and stir in some fresh dill just before serving, then provide additional dishes of herbs and sour cream on the table. I also love pickles with this savoury porridge and on a chilly evening warming shots of vodka.
Chicken Barley Soup Recipe
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This chicken barley soup recipe makes a comforting broth that will evolve into a hearty savoury porridge as the barley expands, which is how I love to eat it. It was created to use up leftover rotisserie chicken but you could poach chicken breasts. It’s super versatile and could easily be used to clean out the vegetable drawer.
Servings: 4
Calories: 411kcal
- 1 cup pearl barley
- 1 litre chicken stock
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 150 g onion finely diced
- 120 g carrot finely diced
- 2 celery stalks finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 rotisserie chicken separated into pieces, or shredded poached chicken breasts
- ½ tsp paprika ground
- ½ tsp turmeric ground
- 1 tsp salt or to taste
- 1 tsp white pepper or to taste
- 1 tbsp fresh dill and/or celery leaf chopped
- 4 tbsp sour cream
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Use a fine mesh sieve to rinse one cup of pearl barley under running water until clear, then transfer to a soup pot. Pour in the chicken stock, stir, bring to a boil then reduce heat.
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To a flat-bottomed wok or pan, heat olive oil, fry the diced onion, carrot and celery over low heat for around 10 minutes, add garlic and continue to fry until fragrant, taking care to brown but not burn the garlic.
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Transfer to the soup pot, add the leftover rotisserie chicken pieces (or shredded poached chicken breasts), spices and seasoning, and continue to cook until the chicken has warmed up and the barley has expanded, and you have a dense soup with a porridge-like consistency.
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Taste, adjust the spice or seasoning to suit your palate. Just before serving, stir through the fresh herbs, spoon on a dollop of sour cream, and serve with slices of crusty sourdough, pickles and more fresh herbs.
Calories: 411kcal | Carbohydrates: 49g | Protein: 30g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 6g | Trans Fat: 0.01g | Cholesterol: 72mg | Sodium: 751mg | Potassium: 742mg | Fiber: 10g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 5200IU | Vitamin C: 7mg | Calcium: 46mg | Iron: 2mg
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make our easy chicken barley soup recipe for a hearty savoury barley porridge as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
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A travel and food writer who has experienced over 70 countries and written for The Guardian, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, National Geographic Traveller, Conde Nast Traveller, Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, DestinAsian, TIME, CNN, The Independent, The Telegraph, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, AFAR, Wanderlust, International Traveller, Get Lost, Four Seasons Magazine, Fah Thai, Sawasdee, and more, as well as authored more than 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, DK, Footprint, Rough Guides, Fodors, Thomas Cook, and AA Guides.
