Soup Usually Tastes Better The Next Day – Here's Why

Whether you prefer creamy tomato bisque or hearty bean soup, preparing a tasty pot of soup requires plenty of time, elbow grease, and simmering, but it pays delicious dividends (in the form of leftovers) for days to come. If you've enjoyed more than a few bowls of reheated soup, you may have noticed that soupy dishes often taste better after an interlude in the fridge. It might seem counterintuitive, especially for people who think leftovers are gross, but soup tends to improve with age thanks to a fascinating mix of psychological and chemical factors.

First of all, there's the convenience factor. It's hard to beat the satisfaction of knowing you've got a full container of soupy deliciousness stashed in the fridge, ready to be reheated at a moment's notice. Another psychological reason leftover soup may be more attractive is sensory fatigue. If you've been smelling, seeing, and thinking about that simmering soup for hours during the cooking process, a fresh bowl isn't quite so appetizing or stimulating to your senses. But a freshly reheated bowl the next day? That's going to seem like perfection.

In addition to the psychological factors, there are some clear chemical reasons why soup tastes better when it is eaten as leftovers. From delicate consommés (which everyone should be making) to hearty meat-and-potato stews, almost every type of soup contains lots of fat and water soluble flavor compounds. Given enough time, these compounds slowly break down and spread around the dish. Basically, the salty, spicy, and fatty flavors diffuse through the various elements of the soup as it sits in the fridge, resulting in the dish having a richer and more harmonized overall taste. And if your soup was a little thin the first time around, take heart, because starchy soup recipes will likely thicken up with time as the starch molecules soak up the surrounding liquid.

Of course, soup is an incredibly broad and wide-ranging culinary category, and not every soup tastes better the next day. For example, noodle-based soups like pastina soup (otherwise known as the Italian penicillin) are the ultimate comfort food, but the quick-cooking starches they contain tend to swell and soften as they soak in the broth. This means that, if left too long, they can become bloated, overly soft, and unappetizing. That being said, most soups are definitely better after a day or two in the fridge.