Are Olive Garden Soups Made Fresh In-House?

Some of Olive Garden's soup choices may not be traditional Italian fare, but they are beloved by first-timers and regulars alike. Customers can even order Olive Garden's soup by the half-gallon through the restaurant's catering menu — whether or not you're actually entertaining or just enjoying a large batch of your favorite dish is up to your discretion. However tasty and beloved these signature soups are, one question remains: Are they made fresh in-house? Technically, yes.

Some restaurants receive shipments of frozen food items that are then reheated, plated, and served to customers, but each Olive Garden kitchen does make its soups in-house. "At Olive Garden, our soup and sauce masters craft their dishes by hand and from scratch," reads the description box of a YouTube video shared by the chain. However, there's more to the story.

The video showcases Olive Garden soup master Carlos Weston preparing the first course, then ladling it from a small pot into a dish, ready for a customer to enjoy. But this is likely not how each dish is crafted. One user in the comments raised concerns about the authenticity of the video, claiming that they fished a small piece of plastic out of their soup. The restaurant then clarified, "We make our soups from scratch every morning and bag them [in plastic] to keep [them] fresh." Then, the restaurant serves them "throughout the day."

If you choose the soup option as your first course at Olive Garden, don't expect a brand-new serving hot out of the pot — it is highly unlikely that you are enjoying it fresh. "[We] would put them in bags and heat seal them, they would be set in an ice bag and then rotated [in] and out of an industrial boiler to keep them hot until they are brought to the line," one Reddit user and former sauce and prep cook at Olive Garden confirmed. Users on another Reddit thread claimed that certain elements, like kale and spinach, are added to each serving after the soup is reheated and plated, so at least one part of it remains fresh.

If you take Olive Garden's word for it, the bagged products are (hopefully) swapped out each morning when a new batch is made, so you aren't likely being served a soup that is multiple days old. However, other in-house menu items are made fresh without seeing the inside of a plastic bag. Per the former Olive Garden employee on Reddit, "[The] Alfredo is always fresh. It has a shelf life of [four] hours, and has to be made accordingly or else the butter separates from the dairy." Knowing this sauce is made from scratch throughout the day is a welcome relief for those who enjoy OG's Alfredo offerings.