Instant Pot Beef and Barley Soup recipe. Soup made from scratch, starting with a pressure cooker beef bone broth. Perfect for warming up on a cold winter night.

Even with this winter’s mild weather, I find myself craving soup. I keep running out of broth, no matter how much I make. So, here’s a batch of soup, starting with making the broth from beef bones. When I make a batch of Instant Pot Browned Beef Broth, I always try to make as much as will fit in my pressure cooker. I can always find a use for extra broth in my cooking.

A bowl of beef and barley soup — Instant Pot Beef and Barley Soup

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That said, this recipe takes time. Broth means a big pot of water, and water has a lot of thermal mass. A big pot of water is slow to heat up to pressure and slow to cool down. This recipe is very hands-off, perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon, or across a couple of evenings, with the broth on the first night and the soup on the second.

I know a lot of people are looking for quick weeknight dinners, and this is not a 30-minute dump-and-stir recipe. This is old-school soup-making, brought to modern times through the magic of the pressure cooker. Is it worth all this work? Try a bowl of this soup on a cold winter’s night, and I think you’ll say “Absolutely, it was worth it!”

Jump to:

Ingredients
How to make Instant Pot Beef and Barley Soup
Substitutions
Equipment
Scaling
Make Ahead
Storage
Tips and Tricks
What to Serve with Instant Pot Beef and Barley Soup
Instant Pot Beef and Barley Soup
💬 Comments

Ingredients

Browned Beef Broth

Beef bones
Meaty beef shanks
Tomato paste
Onions
Garlic
Carrot
Celery
Fresh thyme
Peppercorns
Fine sea salt
Water

Beef and Barley Soup

Butter
Onion
Celery
Carrot
Dried thyme
Fine sea salt
Pearl barley
Chuck steak
Browned Beef Broth (from above)
Can of diced tomatoes
See recipe card for quantities.

How to make Instant Pot Beef and Barley Soup

Make the Beef Broth

Heat an oven to 425°F. In a large roasting pan, rub the tomato paste over the beef bones and beef shanks. Add the onions, garlic, carrots and celery to the pan, and spread everything out in a single layer. Put the pan in the oven and roast for 30 minutes. Turn the beef and aromatics and roast for another 15 to 30 minutes, until the beef and aromatics are browned. Scrape everything from the roasting pan into the Instant Pot. Add the thyme and peppercorns, and cover the bones with water - 8 to 12 cups of water, or whatever reaches your pot’s max fill line. Lock the lid on the pressure cooker and cook on high pressure for 75 minutes in an Instant Pot or other electric PC, or for 1 hour in a stovetop PC. Let the pressure come down naturally, about 30 more minutes. (The water holds a lot of heat, so it takes a while for the pressure to drop. If you get impatient, you can quick release the pressure after 15 minutes.) Scoop the solids out of the pot with a slotted spoon. Skim the fat from the top of the broth as best you can. (This is easy if you refrigerate the broth overnight; the fat rises to the top and solidifies, so you can scrape it off in big chunks). Use 2 quarts of the broth in this recipe, and freeze the rest of the broth in 2 cup containers.

Saute the aromatics

Wipe out the Instant Pot, add the butter, and set it to Sauté mode adjusted to High. When the butter melts, add the onion, celery, carrot, thyme, and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of salt. Saute, stirring occasionally, until the onion turns translucent, about 5 minutes.

Everything in the pot

Stir the beef cubes and the barley into the pot. Pour in the 2 quarts of beef broth we saved, and then the can of diced tomatoes.

Pressure Cook for 15 minutes with a Natural Release

Lock the pressure cooker lid. Cook on high pressure for 15 minutes in an Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker (Use Manual, Pressure Cook, or Pressure Cook - Custom mode in an Instant Pot), or for 12 minutes in a stovetop PC. Let the pressure come down naturally, for about 20 more minutes; you can quick release any remaining pressure after 15 minutes if you are in a hurry.

Season and serve

There is very little salt in this homemade broth, so you will need to add a lot of salt to season the soup. Stir in 1½ teaspoons of fine sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. Serve and enjoy!

Substitutions

Meat: I use chuck steak - a thin-cut piece of beef chuck shoulder. You can also use pre-cut "stew meat", top round, or bottom round.
Store-Bought Beef Broth Store-bought broth has a lot of sodium, and nowhere near as much flavor as homemade broth. But, if you have to use it, you'll still get a good soup out of it. Replace the homemade beef broth with 2 quarts of store-bought broth, and skip the 1 ½ teaspoons of fine sea salt at the end.

Equipment

A 6-quart pressure cooker. (I love my Instant Pot pressure cooker.)

Scaling

This recipe makes enough broth for a doubled recipe, but to double the soup, you should probably move to an 8-quart pressure cooker. (If you do that, I recommend doubling the broth as well, so you still have enough for a second soup. If you're going to make broth, why not make a lot?) Cut all the ingredients in half and this recipe will fit in a 3-quart pressure cooker. The cooking time does not change; it takes the same amount of time to cook the beef and barley no matter how much soup you are making.

Make Ahead

You can make the beef broth way ahead - refrigerate it for up to 2 days, or freeze for up to 6 months.

Storage

Soup makes great leftovers; I store it in 2-cup containers. They'll last for a few days in the refrigerator, or for months in the freezer, and are the perfect size for a grab-and-go lunch.

Tips and Tricks

Small cubes of beef: I cut the beef into small cubes, so they are bite-sized and easy to eat as part of a soup. I start with chuck steak from my local grocery store, since it is usually a thin cut, and half the work of dicing is done for me.
Roasting the beef broth ingredients: Yes, I know this is an Instant Pot recipe, but I use the oven to brown my beef broth ingredients. I get better browning in the oven. You can skip the browning step if you want to, but I don't recommend it. Browning the beef, tomato paste, and other ingredients adds a LOT of flavor.

What to Serve with Instant Pot Beef and Barley Soup

Soup, salad, and bread is a cliche for a reason - it's a fantastic combination. I'll serve this soup with dinner rolls, or a loaf of crusty French bread cut into pieces.