
Well, I never did make it to Body Pump today after all! It turns out that my muscles do not appreciate the Booty Camp DVD after a long time off. I’m quite sore today and opted to give my muscles some time to repair themselves. The body builds muscles quicker when it has time to repair, right?
There is a Body Pump class tomorrow morning that I am hoping to go to to end 2010 with a bang!
In the meantime, I decided some healthy comfort food was in order. This dish blew me away and I think you will love it too! It is really easy to make and the prep work is very minimal. The recipe below makes enough for 4 side servings (~1/2 cup each), but you could easily double it if you wanted to serve it as a main for 4 people. Otherwise, it makes enough for 2 people for dinner.
Or you know…in a pinch, a food blogger who happens to be cooking at 7:30am and wants something for breakfast…

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Easy Creamy Tomato Barley Risotto
Adapted from Vegan Yum Yum Cookbook.
Yield: ~2 cups
Ingredients:
- 1 cup dry pot barley
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp dried basil
- 1 large garlic clove, minced
- 1.5 cups canned pureed/diced tomatoes (15 oz can)
- 1 cup almond milk (or other milk)
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast (provides the cheesy/creamy taste)
- 1/2 tbsp Miso, mixed with 1/2 tbsp water
- 1/4-1/2 tsp kosher salt, to taste
Directions: Rinse pot barley in a strainer and place into medium sized pot that has a lid. Add olive oil, basil, and oregano and stir well until barley is coated with oil. Turn heat to medium until barley begins to sizzle.
Once the barley sizzles, add in the minced garlic and reduce heat to low-medium. Cook for 1 minute and then add in the tomatoes, milk, water, nutritional yeast, miso, and salt. Stir well and bring to a gentle boil and then cover and reduce heat to low.
Cook, covered (with a bit of air escaping) for 30-35 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so, being careful not to burn the barley on the bottom of the pot.
The mixture should be creamy, but not soupy, and the barley will be very chewy and not mushy. Serve immediately. Serves 4 side dishes and makes 2 cups worth.
Note: I read that it can take 2 hours to cook, but after just 35 minutes, I deemed it ready to eat. If you don’t want it as chewy you could always cook it longer.
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This recipe is very easy to make and requires just a few steps!
Mince your clove of garlic and gather your barley, oil, and herbs.

Looking good.

Add the above ingredients into a medium sized pot and heat over medium until the barley begins to sizzle. Now add in the minced garlic and reduce to low heat. Cook for 1 minute.

Gather your canned tomato, milk, water, nutritional yeast, salt, and miso…


The original recipe called for 3 tablespoon of miso, but I thought that was way too much sodium for my liking. I needed only 1/2 a tablespoon and it tasted awesome. The great thing about cooking (as opposed to baking), is that you can always adjust dishes to taste because everyone will prefer different things.
You might be able to get away with leaving the Miso out (if you don’t have any), but make sure to add in more salt to taste.

Add to pot and mix well. Bring to a boil and then cover and reduce to low.

Cook on low, covered, for about 35 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so to ensure that the barley doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot (it will if you leave it, so be careful!).
The result is a healthy, creamy, chewy, and rich barley risotto that makes the perfect winter dish. No dairy required.

This would make such a great dish to serve on New Year’s day if you are not into the whole black eyed peas thing.
I continue to be blown away by the delicious foods I can eat as a vegan!

The original recipe calls for pearled barley, but I picked up pot barley instead because it is much more nutritious. Not having cooked with either before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I absolutely loved the pot barley’s chewy texture!
From what I understand, pearled barley kernels are polished to remove the double outer hull and the bran layer, which also removes many of the nutrients, sort of like white rice. It cooks much more quickly as a result.
Pot (Scotch) barley, on the other hand, is polished like pearl barley, but to a lesser extent. The kernels are less refined, retaining more of the bran layer and it takes longer to cook, but the outcome is a wonderful chewy texture similar to wheat berries! You can use either pearled or pot barley in this recipe.
It has a great nutty flavour too.

It was love at first creamy bite.
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{ 109 comments… read them below or add one }
This looks delicious!! Can’t wait to try it!
Oh dear lord, I love this recipe! Thank you!!
this looks so creamy and good!! barley is one of my favorites too!! thanks. I hope you make it to body pump tomorrow! :)
That looks soo good! I do have a couple of questions. We don’t have nutritional yeast or miso, are they neccessary, or are there any subs for these ingredients?
The nutritional yeast is necessary as it gives the creamy/cheesy taste, unless of course, you are going to add in regular cheese, then by all means leave it out.
I only used 1/2 tbsp of the Miso, which makes me think it could be left out, as long as you add more salt to taste (since Miso is so salty you will need to compensate if removed).
Hmmm…
My family loves cheese, so I might just add that……….thanks for the tip! =D
enjoy!
I wonder if Soy Sauce could be used to replace the Miso. They are both salty and might have a similar flavor (although, I do not recall if I have ever tasted Miso), just a thought
I love chewy grains too – I don’t think I’ve ever tried pot barley, just the pearled kind. This sounds so delicious and yummy! Quick question – where do you buy your miso from? I’ve looked in most grocery stores we have around here and all I can seem to find is packets of miso soup!
I got it at Ontario Natural Food Coop (its a wholesaler), but Ive seen it at whole foods before too. Not sure if Loblaws or other chains carries it? Sometimes you can call your grocery store and request something if they dont carry it.
Yum! I love using barley in risotto.. and with tomato.. yes please.
Gorgeous photos!! This meal is right up my alley. Will have to give it a try next week! I really want to explore more grains and barley is definitely on the list! xo
Mmmm…I am such a fan of risotto! I love the addition of miso here– very interesting!
Oh I love creamy risotto but hate that it’s usually full of butter and fatty cheese – this looks incredible. I want to lick my screen. Angela, you are a genius!
Ummm, delicious?!!!! I’m a huge risotto fan- I never thought of adding another base flavor to the rice, but it sounds divine!
Oh wow, I can’t wait to try this recipe! I love barley! Angela, you rock!
that looks so hearty and delicious!
I want to try body pump too! i just need to decide if i want to rejoin a gym or not… :S
That looks delicious. I really need to start “cooking” and not just “baking”.
OH wow – this looks awesome.
This looks wonderful! And easy to make. :D
Looks perfect and absolutely comforting.
This looks delicious. Seeing as how I have everything on hand it might be tonight’s dinner – just a quick substitution of rice of quinoa for the barley to make it gluten free – hope it’s as delicious as the original looks :-)
Sorry – I meant to say *rice or quinoa
let me know how it turns out…I was wondering about quinoa too!
Looks delicious as always! :)
This is a standard recipe for us from Vegan Yum Yum. So delicious!!
isn’t it soooo good? I was not expecting it to be so delicious.
If that doesn’t look comforting I don’t know what does!!!! :)
this looks super, but I must admit that I might sub parmesan for the nooch ;)
half the fun of cooking is experimenting ;)
Oh my, that looks absolutely decadent. Who knew veganism could make this happen?!
This looks perfect for a sick girl <—- ME!
Hope you feel better soon!
Wow this looks good! It’s refreshing to see such a healthy recipe. I got kind of overwhelmed (in a wonderful way) staring at so many delicious holiday treats over the past month! This looks like a good way to start the new year:)
I have been following your website for almost a year now and I think you have a real talent for expressing yourself and your passions. I can’t wait to see your new resolutions!
I have been following your website for almost a year now and I think you have a real talent for expressing yourself and your passions. I can’t wait to see your new resolutions!
thank you Amy :) All the best in 2011 to you as well!
This looks so yummy! I’ve been looking for ways to use nutritional yeast more often, so I am going to have to try this one for sure. Your photos are beautiful!
That looks amazing! I love how it has miso in it, I’m always looking for new ways to use up that stuff. It’s great spread on sandwiches :) But then again, I have weird taste :P
Oh my, it looks so tomato-y and delicious! I am a sucker for anything tomato so this is right up my alley!
When ever i make risotto it comes out all mushy, is that how it’s supposed to be?
Im not sure…I dont think so? The Pot barley is nice because it takes a LONG time to get mushy and was very chewy in this recipe.
Mmm…tomato risotto sounds delicious! Great recipe, as always!
Love risotto, love nutritional yeast, love barley, love tomatoes… well isn’t this ideal! heehee
haha
oh wow, looks spectacular! I love to cook with gen-mai miso, my absolute fave.
i just had a flashback to my campbell’s tomato soup days.
-Jac
this I will be making! Look so good.
Congrats by the way on ALL your accomplishments of the year. :)
thanks Moni :)
Oh how I love risotto!
You make every recipe look good!
Awesome to see a healthy vegan risotto – a notoriously creamy, cheesy, heavy dish. Can’t wait to make this!
Delicious! Risotto= true love.
Delicious! Risotto= true love.
I have been a long time admirer of your blog, and I continue to be blown away. When most people think “vegan,” they think dry tofu and spinach. You make your meals look so appetizing and rich! Being a vegan looks fun and delicious when you prepare meals. Keep up the great posts!
this looks so great angela! creamy and cheesy is right up my alley ;)
Hi Angela,
I have followed your blog for a few months now and I just wanted you to know that you have inspired me this New Year. I am eager to be more healthy this upcoming year as many big life changes happen (like graduating college, yikes!) and I hope that through my healthy life choices, my students will make their own healthy choices. Thanks! Happy New Year.
that is so great to hear!
Angela this looks awesome! I love tomatoes. As in, I eat one every single day. Sometimes 2 a day :) Lycopene much? haha
Anyway this one looks delish..I can’t eat barley b/c it’s a gluten grain but i love barley. But it doesnt love me. I would loveeeee to make this recipe!
Happy 2011!
:)
This looks amazing. I have some pearled barley on hand, and will likely try it using that. Is there a HUGE difference nutritionally between pearled and pot?? (barley that is! :) )
Ange this looks so great! Risotto is definitely one of those things in life that I have always been wanting to have but couldn’t because of the non-vegan versions. Hope to try this one, especially the barley, soon!
i love risotto but am always looking for a way to make it healthier…this sounds amazing!
I have a recipe just like this for quinoa but I’ll have to try it with Risotto! Happy 2011 :)
I really want to try nutritional yeast. Where can I get it?
I think you can find it at most bulk food stores and health stores :)
I love all your recipes you’ve been posting lately! One of my goals for the New Year is to try out more recipes, so you can bet I’ll be making all of these! :D
I recently started following your blog from the Project Food Blog series. This recipe looks delicious–I’m making it as we speak!
I made this last night and it turned out great! Thank you =D
I made this yesterday and it was INCREDIBLE! I was not expecting it to be so creamy and cheesy-tasting. I’ve been meaning to try a recipe with nutritional yeast in it for a while- now I’m so glad I did. I’m trying to cut out dairy and this will make it a lot easier.
Also, I used pearl barley- I’m not sure if it’s the same as pot barley, but it came out perfectly.
I used Bob’s Red Mill 100% whole grain barley and it took about 1.5 hours to cook. I loved loved loved the slight chewiness and it was totally worth the wait. Thankfully my dinner guest was late :) We ate generous portions of the risotto as our main dish with a fresh loaf of hearty bread. Mmmm delizioso! Needless to say, the two of us polished off the entire pot. Thanks Angela!!
I had Ottolenghi’s tomato barley on my hitlist, but yours looks so much easier. Both look totally scrumptious, though. :)
This recipe was sooooooo good! I should have cooked my pot barley longer but that is lesson learned for next time…..and there will definitely be a next time for this. It was sooooo good!
i’ve never used barley, i might now
This was delicious! I added chickpeas and chopped kale to make it a complete meal, and it was fantastic. Thanks for all your wonderful, healthy recipes!
I love this blog! I go to it for all my recipes! I was wondering where you get all your cute colorful spoons? Haha i know..weird question.
thank you Jennifer! Most of them are from Crate and Barrel or random kitchen stores. :)
this recipe is phenomenal! i’ve had the worst craving for a vegan version and lo and behold, here it is! thanks so much.
This was a hit with me and my husband last night. Will def make again. I’m not vegan so used Parmesan cheese instead of nutritional yeast and also only had pearl barley at home but it was so yummy. think it might become a new staple in our house.
I’ve actually never had risotto before, but even without a point of comparison, I can say for sure that this is truly an amazing recipe. I was definitely not expecting something so tasty… but then again, I always repeatedly pleasantly surprised by all of your recipes, Angela. (Even the ones that I know will turn out well… will end up turning out better than I could have imagined, similar to how the ones I doubt from the get-go turn into fabulous dishes.)
Thank you for this!
Do you think it’d be possible to replace the canned tomatoes in this recipe with passata or tomato puree? I’m not a fan of tomato seeds and try to avoid it as much as possible. And could I use rice instead of miso?
*barley, not miso!
This was surprisingly good! I used the little can of tomato paste I had on hand (diluted it with vegetable stock). Omitted the miso. Creamy, rich, and reminded me a bit of spaghetti-O’s, but a grown-up, tastier version :)
Do you think you could sub wheat berries for the barley? Do you think I’d need to soak the wheat berries first? I have a tub of hard red wheat that I use for baking bread, but I’ve never thought to use them in an entree recipe before, that is until you made a comment that the texture of barley & wheat berries was similar.
Oh dear… I’ve got to say, my first attempt at one of your recipes did NOT go down well at all. I thought “oh, this one has ‘easy’ in the title, that’s for me!”.. lol apparently not. Not only did the barley refuse to actually cook properly (still got quite a bit of crunch), but the sauce got all burned. I had it on the lowest heat and was hovering over it stirring every couple minutes to try (“try” being the key word here) to keep it from burning. No such luck.
I then tried to mask the burned flavour with a little cayenne pepper and onion powder (which has rescued meals in the past), to make it seem “smokey” instead of downright burned.. Worked to a point, but it was still quite evident that some burning had taken place.
I ended up getting so fed up with the lack of barley-related cooking that was going on, and with the continual burning of the sauce, that i just threw in some more water and tossed the lot into the microwave to see if that would nudge the barley into submission. It didn’t.
So for the last hour I’ve been sitting here trying to get down this dreadful pile of burned-but-still-somehow-undercooked-barley gloop.
I don’t know how you do it. You make it look so delicious and easy haha, I appear to have some real anti-skill in the kitchen..
I’m thinking next time I might pre-cook the barley a little before attempting this.
x
Ooo, or possibly make the same sauce but use quinoa instead of barley..
I made this risotto this week and it was amazing! I haven’t been able to find nutritional yeast, so what I did was throw a handful of cashews in the food processor and I used the pulverized cashews. Still turned out delicious and creamy!
This looks amaazing! :)
cafecraftea.blogspot.com
I know this is an older post, but I recently discovered your website and made this recipe for dinner tonight. YUM!!! My husband thought it was cheesy rice. We will definitely be making this again. Thanks for the wonderful recipes!
I made this the other night and it was great. I love how much easier the method is than regular risotto but the reward is just as good! For the tomato puree, I had about 3 oz of tomato paste leftover from another recipe, and I just threw that in the blender with 10 or 15 cherry tomatoes, seeds, skins and all. The result was a little less than 1.5 cups but worked out awesome! Didn’t have miso either but I just used extra salt. And the barley I used was quick-cooking barley from Trader Joe’s. It took about the same amount of time as the recipe though, 30ish minutes.
Thanks for a great recipe, I think I will definitely be making it again.
We loved this recipe so much we made twice in one week. Thank-you so much for your seriously delicious cuisine and attention to detail in your recipes. You can tell the amount of testing and care that went into…new to vegan world. We are looking for recipes which are not heavy on processed soy products…more whole foods and lower oil. Your blog is my favourite for recipes…bought your cookbook and like yourself after each meal am simple “blown away” by how delicious it can be to eat vegetables!
Thank you Michelle! I appreciate it :)
This recipe is AMAZING. So tastey and creamy and easy to make. I added in some spinach in the last 8 minutes to add some greens :) so yummy!
Thanks for this recipe. Do you think black barley will work for this? Maybe it would just take a bit more time?
best vegan recipe I have come across of.
I have been doing vegan cooking for a while and this is is super tasty, healthy and easy to make, and not to mention very original ! this is a winner
I’m not familiar with pot barley, but I do have pearled barley on hand. Do you think there is any difference? Would I be ok using the pearled? Thank you!
What could I substitute for nutritional yeast?
Hi Marianne, unfortunately, there isn’t really a substitute for the nutritional yeast, as it’s what gives the pasta its creamy/cheesy taste (unless you consume real cheese, of course!).
Wow! This was so amazing! I didn’t have any nutritional yeast, so I cooked it without, then added in about 1/4-1/2 cup cashew cheese at the end. It was so good I could hardly keep myself from eating the whole pot!
I LOVED this recipe!! It was sooo good! I doubled the amount because I had a 28oz can for the tomato. But I halved the amount of water and it was perfect!
Toasting the barley definitely made a huge difference – Thank you!!
Hi Connie, I’m so happy to hear that this recipe was a big hit! Thanks for letting me know :)
Looks great! If I want to double the serving size do I need to cook the barley longer?
Hey Haley, Oh good question. I’m sorry but I’m not sure! Please let me know if you try anything out.
Saved this recipe one year ago and tried to make it last night!
And it was amazzzziiinggg!
No need cooking skill just need to watch out the barley at the bottom of the pot just like what you’ve said ❤️
I’m Using pearled barley, and i need about 1 hour to cook this so i add another cup of water so it doesnt burnt out and i subtitute the miso with more salt and it taste cheesy and delicious !
Will make it again !!
Thank you for your recipe x
I make this all the time and love it! As I’m usually in remote places with no nutritional yeast I used a can of coconut milk which is nice and think. Tonight there was no pot barley to be found so I’m trying with risotto :/
Thanks so much, I love the coconut milk swap :)
Hi Angela, just tried this for lunch today and it was delicious! I soaked the barley overnight so it cooks more easily and also added one red onion to saute with the garlic. Thank you for your consistently good recipes!
I made this with a few tweaks due to some food allergies, and it was so darn good! Like going into my regular rotation good. I used steel-cut oats instead of barley, and omitted the oil and nutritional yeast. The chewiness of the steel-cut oats was so delicious, and I highly recommend people try it this way! 5 stars!
This looks amazing!! Can I substitute barley for Arborio rice?
hi Angela – do you have any suggestions about what to add as a protein for this dish? The risotto was a big hit, but I’d like to make it a complete meal for my kids. Thanks!
Just made this and it is to die for!! Easy ingredients & minimal steps = the perfect dish!