A big pot of soup made on a Sunday in October can cover dinner that night, a couple more dinners after it, and a few lunches in between. Whether it actually does depends a lot on which soup you picked. Some fall soup recipes taste better on Wednesday than they did on Sunday, because the onion, garlic and herbs have had time to settle into the broth. Others thicken into something close to porridge, go grainy, or lose the bright green that made them look so good on the first night.
Below are the soups that tend to get made in big batches this time of year, with how long each one simmers, about how much a pot makes, and how it holds up by day three. Most of the fixes are small: hold one ingredient back, keep an extra carton of broth around, and change what goes next to the bowl.
Lentil and bean soups are the fall soup recipes that age best
Lentil and bean soups are the safest choice for a pot that has to last, because beans and lentils keep their shape and the broth gets more flavorful as it sits. If you’re only making one big pot this month, make it one of these.
Lentil soup. A brown or green lentil soup with carrots, celery, onion and a can of tomatoes simmers for about 30 to 40 minutes once the lentils go in. A pound of dried lentils with around 8 cups of broth makes about 3 quarts, which is six to eight bowls. It’s better on the second and third day than the first. The thing to expect is that lentils keep soaking up liquid in the fridge, so by Tuesday it’s closer to a stew. Thin each portion with a little broth or water as it reheats, then taste for salt again, since the added liquid dilutes it. A squeeze of lemon or a small splash of red wine vinegar right before serving brings it back to life.
White bean and kale soup. With canned cannellini beans, white bean and kale soup needs only about 30 minutes of simmering. From dried beans, plan on an hour and a half or more after soaking. Four 15-ounce cans of beans with 8 cups of broth makes roughly 3 quarts. Mashing a cup or so of the beans against the side of the pot makes the broth creamy without any cream, and a Parmesan rind dropped in while it simmers adds a lot (fish it out before you store the soup). The beans hold up all week, but by day three the kale turns soft and dark, even lacinato, which holds its shape better than curly. If that bothers you, cook half the kale into the pot and wilt the rest into each bowl as you reheat it.
Chili gets folded into most fall soup lists even though it’s closer to a stew, and in the fridge it behaves like a bean soup: thicker each day, and better for it. Our turkey chili with rice is a reasonable place to start if you want one in the rotation.
Do smooth soups like butternut squash keep well?
Smooth, blended soups mostly keep well in the fridge, but butternut squash and potato leek age very differently, and the difference comes down to the potato.
Butternut squash soup. Butternut squash soup simmers for 20 to 25 minutes, until the cubes are soft enough to crush with a spoon, and then gets blended. Two medium squashes, around 5 pounds together, with an onion, a couple of carrots or apples and about 6 cups of broth make roughly 3 quarts. It tastes about the same on day four as on day one. Leave the cream or coconut milk out of the big pot and add it bowl by bowl instead, which keeps the base plain: one night it gets cream and a little sage, another night curry paste and coconut milk.
Potato leek soup. Potato leek soup is the one to eat in the first couple of days. It simmers for 20 to 25 minutes once the potatoes are in, and about 2 1/2 pounds of potatoes with three large leeks and 6 cups of broth makes around 2 1/2 quarts. Day two is fine. By day three or four the potato starch has set it up thick, and more broth helps without ever quite bringing back the original texture. Potato soups also tend to turn grainy after freezing. If potato leek is the soup your household asks for, make it the smaller, second pot of the week and keep the big pot for something sturdier.
What happens to barley and wild rice soups in the fridge?
Barley and wild rice keep absorbing broth for as long as the soup sits, so a soup that was brothy on Sunday can be nearly solid by Wednesday. Both soups below are still worth making, with one decision made up front.
Beef and barley soup. Beef and barley soup takes the longest of anything here. Chuck cut into cubes needs about 1 1/2 to 2 hours of gentle simmering to turn tender, and pearl barley goes in for roughly the last 40 minutes. Two pounds of chuck, a cup of pearl barley and about 10 cups of broth make 3 1/2 to 4 quarts. The flavor peaks on day two or three, while the barley keeps swelling. Either add broth as you reheat, or cook the barley in a separate pot and spoon some into each bowl, which keeps the soup brothy all week and the barley chewy.
Chicken and wild rice soup. Chicken and wild rice soup has the same problem, and more of it. Wild rice takes 45 minutes to an hour to cook and keeps drinking liquid long after it’s done. A cup of wild rice, about 2 pounds of chicken thighs and 10 cups of broth make roughly 3 1/2 quarts. The creamy version, thickened with flour and butter and finished with milk, gets especially stiff once it’s cold. The easiest fix is to cook the wild rice on its own and store it separately, which also lets the same chicken soup go over egg noodles on another night.
Can one big pot of soup carry the whole week?
One big pot of soup can carry three or four dinners and a few lunches, and food safety sets the limit. Leftovers guidance from the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service allows two hours to get cooked food into the fridge and three to four days to eat it, so a pot made on Sunday is finished by Wednesday or Thursday.
Cooling is the step that’s easy to skip. A full stockpot holds heat for hours, and the middle stays warm long after the outside feels cool. FSIS advises dividing large amounts of leftovers into shallow containers so they chill quickly, so ladle the soup into a few wide containers rather than putting the whole pot in the fridge. When you reheat a portion, FSIS says to bring leftovers to 165°F, which means steaming hot all the way through.
If the pot will clearly outlast those four days, freeze some on the first day, while it’s at its best. FSIS says food kept frozen at 0°F stays safe indefinitely, and what fades with time is flavor and texture. Lentil, white bean, butternut squash and beef and barley soups all freeze well. Potato leek and anything with cream already stirred in are better eaten from the fridge. If a quart of soup in the freezer turns into a habit, we’ve written about banking a whole cooked week in the freezer.
How to keep the same soup from feeling like the same dinner
The easiest way to keep a big pot of soup from wearing thin is to change what you serve with it and what you add at the last minute. A few pairings that work with the soups above:
- Butternut squash with a grilled cheese, or with toasted pumpkin seeds and a swirl of cream.
- Lentil soup spooned over rice with plain yogurt and plenty of black pepper.
- White bean and kale with garlic-rubbed toast and a drizzle of olive oil.
- Beef and barley with a sharp green salad, which helps on day three when the soup has turned rich and heavy.
- Chicken soup over egg noodles one night and with crackers and cheddar the next.
What you add while reheating matters as much as what’s on the side. Fresh herbs like parsley or dill, a squeeze of lemon, a handful of spinach wilted in at the end, or a spoonful of pesto all make a day-three bowl taste newer than it is. Check the salt every time you add broth.
One soup a week is usually plenty. A second pot means twice the containers in the fridge, both racing the same three-to-four-day clock, so the nights in between are better spent on something that looks nothing like soup, such as a sheet pan dinner.
Deciding those other nights is where a lot of households get stuck, and it’s the part A Better Meal takes on. Given your preferences, A Better Meal, an app for planning meals, picks the week’s dinners for you from real recipes, and it can lean on recipes you’ve saved too, so the plan doesn’t keep circling back to the same six meals. If Thursday needs to be something else, you can swap that night out. If your soup is a family recipe, you can import it into the app so it sits in the plan alongside everything else.
Frequently asked questions
How much soup should you make for a family of four?
A family of four needs about 6 cups of soup for one dinner, assuming roughly 1 1/2 cups per person when soup is the main course. A 3-quart batch is 12 cups, so it covers two dinners. To stretch one pot across three dinners, aim for about 4 1/2 to 5 quarts, which needs a pot that holds at least 6 quarts.
Which fall soup recipes are vegetarian?
Lentil, white bean and kale, butternut squash and potato leek soups are all easy to make vegetarian by using vegetable broth. Skip the Parmesan rind if you avoid animal rennet, since most Parmesan is made with it, and add a little miso for depth instead.
Can you freeze soup in glass jars?
Soup can be frozen in glass jars if the jars are labeled freezer-safe, ideally straight-sided ones, and you leave about an inch of space at the top, because soup expands as it freezes. Chill the soup in the fridge before it goes into the freezer, so the glass isn’t going straight from hot to frozen.
Can you make these soups in a slow cooker?
Lentil, white bean and beef and barley soups adapt well to a slow cooker, usually 6 to 8 hours on low. Add pasta, delicate greens and dairy in the last 30 minutes or at serving time. There are more ideas for letting a pot cook while you’re out in our crockpot dinner ideas.
