Barley, chicken, mushroom and courgette bake, minimum fuss for a truly wholesome and delicious dish. Also, you can use leftover chicken. Also, use any vegetables you fancy or have in your fridge.
Down with rice, up with grains
White rice is the go-to grain, and not only in Asian cooking. While I do like it a lot, there are other grains that deserve attention, and nutritionally beat the white fluff by a mile.
Barley, spelt or buckwheat (though the last is not actually a cereal) deliver many times more fibre, more protein, minerals and vitamins than white rice, which is mostly just a refined fast carb. Even the pearled forms of spelt or barley, with the husks stripped off, still win over white rice on fibre and minerals.
When cooked correctly, they are just as delicious. And the cooking process is not at all more effortful. In fact, all those grains can be cooked in a rice cooker.
But even better, they make an easy and wonderful casserole bake, added to other ingredients and stock or water, and baked in the oven, just like in this recipe.
Barley fun facts
Barley, the hero of this recipe, is most commonly available in the pearled form, with the outer husk stripped.
It’s an ancient grain, one of the oldest cultivated in the world. Its Latin name, hordeum, comes from the word meaning ‘bristle’, due to the cereal’s spiky appearance.
It was an important ingredient in the gladiators’ diet. And both in ancient times as well as now, there’d be no beer if not for barley!
How to make a barley bake
Barley can be simmered on the hob, with about twice and a half as much water in volume. If you don’t want to faff about with cups and measuring jugs, cook it in plenty of water like pasta for about thirty minutes, then drain. It can also be cooked in a rice cooker at a 1:2½ ratio of water, on a standard setting.
But this recipe is the easiest of the easy: you add dry, raw barley to the other, prepared ingredients with stock and bake it tightly covered with foil. It’s seriously foolproof.
Chicken and other ingredients
I got inspired by Budget Bytes with their barley and mushroom recipe but my proposition is a wholesome, satisfying dinner in one pan.
For the meat element it’s chicken, and I prefer to use chicken thighs here as they will happily sustain being cooked twice without turning stringy and dry. I roast them with shop-bought taco seasoning but you can season them according to preference: garlic, paprika, cumin, black pepper and/or chilli powder will work nicely.
Once roasted and cooled down a little, I strip the meat off the bones (unless you’re cooking boneless of course), chop it roughly and turn my attention to the other ingredients.
Here we have mushrooms, courgettes and optionally a handful of green veg like peas or chopped asparagus. They are all softened on the hob, and so ideally cook it all in a hob-to-oven kind of dish, a cast iron casserole or similar. But you can also sweat the veg in a frying pan and then transfer everything into a roasting or a gratin dish.
The roasted shredded chicken meat is added to the vegetables and finally, barley. Pour in the stock, cover the dish with foil if it doesn’t have a lid and off it goes to the oven for about forty-five minutes, or until the barley is tender and the liquid has been absorbed.
A sprinkle of Parmesan and some finely chopped herbs are all it needs to serve.
Variations
The only mandatory ingredients are barley and stock – you can chop and change all the rest.
Instead of chicken, you can use bacon, various types of sausages or chopped ham.
It can be made meat free, of course, with only vegetables and a vegetarian stock. Barley is high in protein so it makes perfect sense to prepare it the veggie way.
As far as the vegetables are concerned, anything goes. Onion, peppers, sliced fennel, leeks or carrots, blanched and squeezed out spinach, green beans or broccoli florets.
Seasoning might be spicier or milder, as you wish. And you can top the finished bake with cheese and blast it briefly under the grill, because why not?
More whole grain recipes
Fluffy pearl barley with butter, herbs, Parmesan and peas is an easy high-fibre side or a vegetarian main that turns humble barley into a light, fresh and seriously moreish dish.
Pearled spelt and cannellini bean salad with rose harissa dressing is a delicious lunch option, convenient if you prepare the ingredients, store them in the fridge and mix just before serving. It’s a recipe for a healthy, filling and delicious meal.
Easy one pan buckwheat with minced beef is inspired by Ukrainian hrechanky: savoury beef topped with fluffy kasha that steams over the meat. Finished with parsley, butter and yoghurt for a comforting, budget-friendly dinner.
More one pan oven dish recipes
Easy crown prince squash and chicken traybake marinated with shawarma-style spices, honey and Greek yoghurt. Perfect autumn meal, healthy, low effort and versatile for serving with flatbread or in lettuce cups.
A wholesome and delicious dish of oven baked butter beans with pancetta, seasoned with garlic, herbs and a hint of cinnamon. Cook them from dried for a budget friendly dish.
Chicken enchilada bake with layers of corn tortillas, spiced shredded chicken, black beans and plenty of cheese in a rich homemade ancho chilli sauce. It’s an easy Tex-Mex style casserole of deconstructed enchiladas.