Recipe: Buffalo Chicken Barley Soup

, uThis is, perhaps, not the most flattering photo. But I promise you this was delicious and 4/4 people who know Buffalo cuisine enjoyed it so much they wanted seconds. With the quarantine of 2020 well underway I wanted a soul warming soup, while also getting a taste of home. This was the result!

Makes four bowls worth, or eight tea cups worth.

Ingredients: 
Chicken (I used chicken breasts, but you could use a whole chicken easily enough. Any amount of chicken over one cup is fine and can be changed to accommodate your meal plan for the week) 
2 cups water
1/2 cup Franks hot sauce 
1/4 cup barley
1 Bay leaf
1 tsp caraway seeds
1/2 tsp marmite (other umami related foods would be an ok substitute, such as miso) 
1/2 tsp ground celery seed
Pepper to taste

Optional - carrots, peas, and/or onion. About 1/4 cup of each, I keep bags of frozen in the house.
Optional decor - 1 celery stick per serving.

Materials:
Insta pot or crock pot

Cooking:
1) Put chicken, water, and Franks hot sauce into the insta pot for 10 minutes with natural release. (For a crock pot I would do the same ingredients, 4 hours on high or 6 on low.) 

2) Take out chicken. Put at 1-2 cups of chicken meat, cut into small pieces, back into the soup broth. The rest can be used in other dishes. (I was originally making this chicken for chicken wing dip, and wanted to find a way to use the broth.) 

3) Put barley, bay leaf, caraway seeds, marmite, ground celery, and any optionals into the broth. Set insta pot for 22 minutes with natural release. (For crock pot at least 4.5hours.) 

4) Plate it up! It looks a little weird since the hot sauce combines with the natural fat from the chicken at the top of the soup, but it tastes really good! If you wanted to be fancy you could put a celery stick into the soup, which would look super cute sticking out of a tea cup!