Are Olive Garden's Soups Really Made From Scratch?
When you think of big, national restaurant franchises, fresh, scratch-made food probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind. For the sake of efficiency and consistency, it's no secret that many big name restaurant chains rely heavily on pre-made food that arrives at each location frozen and is merely microwaved to order. It wouldn't be unreasonable to guess that Olive Garden, the massive Italian-American restaurant chain with over 900 locations, follows a similar process. But by most accounts, the majority of items on Olive Garden's menu are made in-house, from scratch, on a daily basis — including its signature soups.
Many of us are pretty accustomed to eating soup that comes from a can, and would probably agree that canned soup doesn't have quite the same ick factor as, say, an entire chicken fajita meal defrosted in the microwave and dumped onto a plate. But despite the fact that restaurants might be better able to pass off premade soup as fresh than some other dishes, soup is evidently not an area where Olive Garden is slacking.
According to numerous Olive Garden marketing materials, the soups (as well as the sauces) are made fresh in-house each day — and the testimony of several purported Olive Garden employees on social media backs this up. So, if you're suddenly craving a bowl of pasta e fagioli, we don't blame you.
Cooking OG style
On its menus, Olive Garden describes the soups as "homemade" and regularly claims that its many soups and sauces are made "the Italian way" — by hand, in house, on a daily basis. The brand has posted videos of the inner workings of an OG kitchen, where viewers can clearly see chefs cooking with fresh ingredients. Being the frequent butt of jokes for its less-than-traditional take on Tuscan fare, it's debatable if Olive Garden is actually cooking anything "the Italian way," per se. But there's decent evidence that its soups, authentic or not, are indeed made fresh daily.
It's been reported, based on the testimony of an anonymous representative of the brand who spoke to PopSugar, that all soups "are made by hand and from scratch every morning using fresh, whole ingredients such as kale, peppers, and squash." Additionally, alleged Olive Garden employees have shared detailed descriptions online of how things work in the kitchens and how the soups, in particular, are made. According to one self-identified server on Quora, "a large vat of each flavor is started very early in the morning, then vacuum sealed in large bags and kept in a warmer until needed. This keeps it warm and fresh without burning/overcooking."
The real deal...probably
One Redditor, supposedly a former Olive Garden general manager, affirmed that the soups are made in house, and offered some additional insight: Individual ingredients, like the sausage that goes in the Zuppa Toscana, may arrive frozen or, in the case of vegetables, pre-chopped, but the actual cooking happens onsite. (Of course, it's always worth taking anonymous social media posts with a grain of salt, but this particular poster's credibility is bolstered by the fact that they were able to share specific recipes for numerous Olive Garden dishes.) Other supposed Olive Garden employees have gone on Reddit to say similar things, vouching that the majority of dishes, including the signature salad and soups, are made in-house, with the one universally agreed upon exception being the desserts, which arrive frozen.
Regardless of how you personally rate the quality of Olive Garden's soups, you can't deny that the Italian-inspired chain hits the mark in terms of quantity, thanks to its famous Never Ending Soup, Salad, and Breadsticks deal. Next time you sit down for a bowl (or two, or seven) of minestrone (which happens to be vegan, by the way), rest assured that it was most likely made fresh that same day.