Slow Cooker Spinach and Halloumi Pearl Barley Risotto 

Slow cooker spinach and halloumi pearl barley risotto makes a great side dish or vegetarian option that cooks in your crockpot in a couple of hours. So tasty and great for summer!

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• Slow cooking grains
• Step by step
• How to serve
• Recipe
• Reviews

Slow cooking grains

This month the theme for the Slow Cooked Challenge over with Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen is Rice and Grains.

I’ve only tried a risotto once in the slow cooker, and it was partly extremely soggy and partly still hard, so not successful at all!

So I thought I might avoid rice this time and try a different kind of grain.

In the supermarket many of the grains I looked at only needed a short cooking time (things like buckwheat, couscous and so on) and so a long cooking time wouldn’t really work for them.

Pearl barley though is a grain I’ve used in lamb stews I’ve cooked in casserole dishes in the oven before, so I knew it could handle a longer cooking time.

I remembered a recipe in the book Slow Cooked by Miss South (check out her blog too) for a pearl barley risotto, or orzotto (orzo is the Italian word for barley), with beetroot.

I decided to take inspiration from that recipe and make a pearl barley risotto with a similar base, using the ingredients in my fridge.

A bag of spinach waiting to be used up and some light halloumi with mint caught my eye so these would go in too. Read on for my recipe for slow cooker spinach and halloumi pearl barley risotto!

Ingredients

Here is what you will need (get the quantities from the recipe card):

• onion, garlic
• pearl barley – the main ingredient
• vegetable stock cube – I like to use Marigold powder as I love the flavour, choose a stock cube you like.
• spinach – I use fresh but frozen would work too
• halloumi – or replace it with feta or another crumbly type of cheese.
• optional – lemon juice, fresh herbs

Step by step

Pearl barley doesn’t go soggy even if cooked for a long time as here.

It retains a nice bite which is great and has a delicate nutty flavour. So it works well in this pearl barley risotto dish.

It is easy to prepare, simply add the pearl barley to the slow cooker along with some onion, garlic and herbs for flavouring.

Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours.

Then stir through chopped spinach and halloumi.

Optionally, squeeze over some lemon juice and add some chopped fresh herbs for additional flavour. Don’t forget to season with salt and pepper.

How to serve

This risotto was delicious warm served with avocado, mozzarella and salad on the side. I’ll also be using the rest up cold in salads over the next few days.

It also works well as a side dish to hot dishes like chilli, or alongside shredded meat. So you can also have it as a side to other slow cooker dishes.

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Recipe

Sending this over to the Slow Cooked Challenge hosted by Janice this month, with the theme of rice and grains. A great theme which made me cook something a bit different!

Also linking up with Meat Free Mondays with Jac from Tinned Tomatoes.