barryvdh/laravel-cors works perfectly with Laravel 5.1 with just a few key points in enabling it.
After adding it as a composer dependency, make sure you have published the CORS config file and adjusted the CORS headers as you want them. Here is how mine look in app/config/cors.php
<?php
return [
'supportsCredentials' => true,
'allowedOrigins' => ['*'],
'allowedHeaders' => ['*'],
'allowedMethods' => ['GET', 'POST', 'PUT', 'DELETE'],
'exposedHeaders' => ['DAV', 'content-length', 'Allow'],
'maxAge' => 86400,
'hosts' => [],
];
After this, there is one more step that's not mentioned in the documentation, you have to add the CORS handler 'Barryvdh\Cors\HandleCors' in the App kernel. I prefer to use it in the global middleware stack. Like this
/**
* The application's global HTTP middleware stack.
*
* @var array
*/
protected $middleware = [
'Illuminate\Foundation\Http\Middleware\CheckForMaintenanceMode',
'Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\EncryptCookies',
'Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\AddQueuedCookiesToResponse',
'Illuminate\Session\Middleware\StartSession',
'Illuminate\View\Middleware\ShareErrorsFromSession',
'Barryvdh\Cors\HandleCors',
];
But its up to you to use it as a route middleware and place on specific routes.
This should make the package work with L5.1