This soup recipe is easy, inexpensive and maybe just what we need after all the eating we did during the High Holidays. It’s a soup that truly celebrates the harvest given to us during Sukkot. If there’s a vegetable in this recipe you don’t love, then don’t add it—use what you love and have available to you! On the cool nights of Sukkot, this is the perfect meal to enjoy.

Harvest Barley Soup

Serves 8

Ingredients

  • 4 tablespoons olive oil
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 shallot bulbs, minced
  • 1 large leek, sliced
  • 1 fennel bulb, sliced
  • 1 parsnip, peeled and sliced
  • 1 garnet yam, diced
  • 2 cups diced and peeled butternut squash
  • Handful of fresh shell beans (fresh beans where you remove the beans from their pod)
  • 1 cup barley
  • 8 cups chicken or vegetable stock
  • 1 zucchini, diced
  • 1 summer squash, diced
  • 2 ears corn, raw (remove corn with a knife)
  • 1 cup fresh green beans
  • 1 pound fresh spinach
  • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
  • Handful of your favorite fresh herbs
  • Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Directions

  1. In a large, heavy-lined stock pot on high heat, add the olive oil. Add the leeks, shallots and garlic and sauté for 5 minutes.
  2. Add the fennel, parsnip, yam, butternut squash and shell beans. Sauté another 5 minutes.
  3. Add the soup stock and barley. Bring to a boil and cook on medium-high for 25 minutes.
  4. Add the rest of the vegetables and herbs and continue to cook for 10-15 minutes more.
  5. Season with salt, pepper and apple cider vinegar.