With Daylight Saving Time now in the rearview mirror, it’s tough to muster the energy to make dinner every night when it’s fully dark out before 5 p.m. At this time of year, many people lean on recipes that will feed their family for two or three nights as opposed to just one, and as it turns out, one of the best fall comfort foods actually tastes better on Day 2 and beyond: Soup! There are a few reasons why soup is better the second day, but research shows that what we think of as taste actually comes from our sense of smell. When you reheat soup the next day, your sense of smell is reset, and all the aromas in the soup a new and exciting to your nose and brain again. In most cases, the flavors taste bigger and bolder than they did the first time. That’s not all — the ingredients you put into the soup interact with one another and evolve over time. When you make something savory — like most soups — the two tastes that most impact the flavor are salt and acidity. As the soup rests, salt and acid can redistribute between the broth and the solid ingredients, changing how each component tastes. In other words, letting your soup spend a night in the fridge will allow the flavors to mix and mingle in a way that makes them taste that much better the next day. Most soups keep well in the refrigerator for up to five days. There’s nothing dangerous about reheating and eating leftover soup — as long as you’re cooling and storing it safely. The sweet spot for cooling your soup is between 2 and 4 hours after you finish cooking it before transferring it to the refrigerator.
