Is Olive Garden's Pasta Made Fresh, Or Is It Frozen?
Since it came out that Olive Garden's Italian food isn't completely Italian, many people across the internet have accused this popular casual dining restaurant of committing various culinary sins. Because of this, there is a lot of confusing information out there about what Olive Garden does or doesn't do and whether or not the restaurant freezes food or even cooks at all. As it turns out, Olive Garden may deserve more credit than the internet has given it.
According to one Quora user who previously worked at the restaurant, much of Olive Garden's food is cooked fresh every morning including soups, sauces, and pasta. Meanwhile, a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread by another ex-employee claims that Olive Garden also barely uses the microwave to reheat food. The only time they do use the microwave is to "steam veggies or heat up a coffee or soup". So, we know that Olive Garden's pasta is not frozen, but is it fully fresh?
How Olive Garden makes pasta
Although it is possible to freeze cooked pasta, and some people even store dry pasta in the freezer, it looks like that's not the case with Olive Garden. In fact, Olive Garden's ex-employee detailed the restaurant's entire pasta-making process in their Quora post. According to them, all the pasta for the day is cooked in the morning. It is then removed from the hot water when it is partially cooked and put in an ice bath. When someone orders pasta at Olive Garden, the employee then takes the partially-cooked noodles and finishes boiling them. Then, when done, the noodles are served with a ladle of sauce that also had been cooked that morning.
So, although Olive Garden's pasta isn't entirely made fresh to order, it is cooked fresh that day and it never sees the inside of a freezer or microwave. The restaurant uses the same process for its sauces and soups. The process also is similar but a little different for the breadsticks. Olive Garden's breadsticks are baked in a separate bakery and then shipped to the restaurant where they are given the finishing touches of a 3-minute bake and some butter. That's much different than what we've been led to believe!
So, no frozen food?
While frozen food has gotten a bad rap over the last decade, the reality is that most restaurants use certain frozen ingredients. In fact, many popular restaurants regularly use frozen meat and even chefs at top restaurants often use some frozen ingredients like seafood, french fries, and certain hard-to-get vegetables.
So, does Olive Garden use frozen food? Of course. However, according to another Quora user in the same thread, the only menu item that arrives at the restaurant premade is the dessert. Warm desserts arrive frozen and are then heated up in the microwave. It's also true that some ingredients arrive at Olive Garden frozen. This is the case for the meat, according to Reddit, where the ex-employee went on to explain in the comments that having fresh meat is "just not possible".
So maybe we shouldn't blame Olive Garden for using some frozen ingredients when it seems to be an industry standard. But if you're still fully in the anti-frozen camp, then go for the vegetarian pasta dishes as they are not only delicious but made fresh every day!