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What foods are better after a day or two?
Lots of foods are best when freshly cooked. What foods do you think are better after they've been in the fridge for a day or two and they get reheated?
Lots of foods are best when freshly cooked. What foods do you think are better after they've been in the fridge for a day or two and they get reheated?
Home-made chili. Mine is always better the next day.
Pretty much anything that has sauce and spices, as the extra time and hydration lets it get all mixed together and mellow. Curries, chili, stews... heck, even cookie dough is better if you give it a day in the fridge before you bake it.
Cookie dough matures for different reasons than just the flavors melding. Resting in the 'fridge allows any gluten strands developed during mixing to relax, resulting in a tenderer crumb and better fat emulsification.
Baking tip - use a portion scoop to drop hemispheres of cookie dough on a sheet pan. Refrigerate overnight, then pop the sheet pan straight into the oven from the 'fridge. The dome of dough will melt into a perfect round cookie that's evenly baked.
I like your baking tip for larger batches, but for a longer drip feed of fresh cookies, once they've rested in the fridge for a day, freeze them. We bake them two at a time in the toaster oven so that we have a singular perfectly fresh cookie apiece. Baking from frozen you need to add another minute or two. but it works quite well.
As others have stated, chili is great the second day, as it gives the spices time to really marinate in there and dig deep into the meat and/or the beans.
I find many pasta dishes are excellent at this as well. Second day lasagna (American style) is one of my favorites, as well as day old properly refrigerated Asian food leftovers such as lo mein, pad thai, and certain curries.
For me the real question is usually: reheat them or eat them cold? There are some things that I actually enjoy just as much cold as warm. Pizza is one of them, oddly.
Pizza is best fresh and hot, and second best cold from the fridge. Room temperature pizza is not very good, and microwaved leftover pizza is disgusting.
I would also rather eat leftover fried chicken cold than reheated.
I take my leftover pizza and head it on a frying pan and flip it every few seconds. The cheese gets melty and hot while the crust gets crispy as if it just came out of an over.
No oil required
refried pizza > fresh pizza
What does flip mean in this context? Is it spending time topping-side down?
Yes
Yeah, this works well. Tied for the best way to reheat pizza with an air fryer, but they come out different so both are worth doing at times.
Try reheating pizza in an air fryer. It comes out crisp and hot, and is dirt simple to do.
I've done it but I'd still rank it considerably lower than cold pizza.
Same here, but it varies based on the pizza for some reason. Frozen pizza is not good cold for me.
Rice for fried rice, you are supposed to use the previous day's rice.
Chilis, absolutely.
Also sarmale (Romanian cabbage rolls) and Stuffed peppers... Actually I think a lot of dishes with a tomato base develop further after they're done cooking
Any kind of Indian dish, my s/o's masala, korma, this ad-hoc lentil dish, every one of them is better days later.
We make a big pot, have 1 serving, store ~2 servings in the fridge for lunch during the week and freeze half of it for leftovers next week. Store separate from rice.
Curry is definitely the first that came to mind for me.
I remember reading an article once where some chemists had looked into it and found that various chemical reactions continued to occur while it's sitting in the fridge that benefit the taste, so there really is a reason for it seeming to taste better.
That and it's just super easy to reheat, pop it in the microwave boom done and you don't miss out on anything. There's a lot of foods where texture is important and they're really hard to reheat like alfredo, which can be saved, but it's basically like re-creating alfredo from scratch.
For me the obvious choice is beans, they get really good on the next day when the sauce thickens up.
Basically any non-lettuce salad - pasta salad, cucumber salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, egg salad, potato salad, etc. They typically have a fatty element that absorbs all the fat soluble components and spreads things around, creating a delicious taste and great mouth feel after a night in the fridge.
Honourable mention to pizza - has to be left on the counter overnight and eaten hungover/tired the next day. The danger makes it taste better (disclaimer: I've not done this in a decade, I'm a responsible adult now who refrigerates leftover pizza)
A little different than what you mean, but chocolate chip cookie dough. Make it and leave it in the fridge for a few days before you bake it. Like 2-3 days makes killer cookies. You can do up to a week just fine.
Gumbo and red beans and rice come to mind.
Seconded. I'll reheat a bowl of gumbo any day of the week.
Thirded. Soon the weather for it approaches. I mean don't get me wrong I'll make it year round.
So a hypothetical that spouse and I share is that your senses are so saturated with cooking aromas and flavors when you're in the kitchen, that you lose the intensity when you taste the dish. Letting it sit overnight while the house airs out lets you experience the full flavors. I have only anecdata to support this, but sometimes it seems like same-day food is the equivalent of tasting with a head cold.
In my case its definitely because I burn my tongue tasting the food as it cooks. I always try to remember that I should be more careful, almost never helps
Gumbo, etouffee, jambalaya... pretty much any thickly sauced Creole or Cajun dish. They're incredible to take into work as leftovers. Just be gentle with the microwave and be ready to make some for your coworkers.
My wife and I visited the New Orleans School of Cooking back in 2012 and learned how to make all those recipes. I'm absolutely awful with a roux, but somehow it still comes out delicious because of their tips and tricks. Highly recommended if you ever visit the city (assuming they're still around)
It was like $40 a person back then, which was already what they charged at most restaurants. We got a show, a printed packet of recipes, and an amazing meal with beer included. We also met people from all over because you get seated with other participants at big tables.
I make a Jamaican Soup (mannish water or Saturday soup depending on what your family called it when you were a "pikni") that tastes so much more dense and flavourful after a day or two.
The pepper spices soak into the veg, the spinners soak up and saturate the soup itself, and the goat/stewing steak softens and becomes so tender it makes one's mouth water.
Shepherd's pie is delicious fresh, but the next day? Forget about it.
Hutspot! But unless you're Dutch you're probably not going to be trying that :p
May be an unpopular opinion but all kinds of dumplings. I like when they're cold and chewy.
Chinese takeaway. Mmm now I'm hungry.
Coleslaw.
Edit: I think this has a sauerkraut effect; We make coleslaw and keep it for a day or two in the fridge and let the cabbage fart a bunch and everything just melds together. Its fantastic. This works for both creamy and vinegar based coleslaws.
McDonald's chicken nuggets always taste better out of the fridge for me, but I haven't had them in almost a year for political and health reasons.
Otherwise, I agree with everyone else on the chilis, soups, stews, and salads being better the next day. Some casseroles are also better the next day. My mother in law makes casserole spinach squares and chilaquiles squares. The Chilaquiles are nothing like the real thing, but a casserole and it's so good cold or heated up.
Piling on the chili and stews train. Maybe it's weird, but I also love hot wings the next day (served cold)
Burritos. All the ingredients just meld together and it’s just chef’s kiss
Pozole
Tiramisu! Even if you soak the ladyfingers really well, it still tastes better if you give it a day for the flavors to meld together.
A good cold cut Italian sub. Eat half the first day, then put the other half in the fridge. So much better the second day.
Chile, curries, and Italian red sauces all seem to improve in flavor the next day. I suspect this is why the "best" red sauces tend to be the ones that cook all day. They getting that same effect, just at cook time.
To give a different answer to the sauces: fermented foods continue to change in flavour a lot as they sit in the fridge.
Soggy, reheated fish and chips in the microwave lol