Why does leftover lasagna taste better

Pretty much any slow-cooked food benefits from an overnight stay in the fridge. Hot Damn! Leftover curry for me tomorrow! Mmmmmmm… I just moved into a house that has carpet, our old house had wood floors and would stink of curry for about 3 days.

I am wondering how long it will last with carpet. I also put a coupla meatloaves in the freezer for later. My take on this is that when you cook something and eat it youre generally eating it at a much higher temperature than you would with something that was cold and warmed up. Tomato sauces taste better when theyre a bit cooler and have congealed some. This is also why a lot of pizzas tastes better cold. I always thought it was something to do with the fat in meat congealing on the surface a bit.

I love me some tater tot casserole, but the next day its just soooooooo much better. I understand that in Greek cuisine, for example, the practice is to cook food slowly, then let it cool for quite some time, hours even, before eating it. Piping hot food is too hot for you to appreciate the flavours. Try looking here , particularly this post. Another possible reason is the role of your sense of smell - which is an important component of taste.

When food is cooking, it gives off all sorts of interesting aromas. Why, oh why are you putting dressed salad in the fridge in the first place? Anyone who knows a thing, or even half a thing about food, knows that if you so much as apply a vinaigrette to salad more than 10 minutes before you plan to eat it, you'll be dining on a sad bowl of wilted, limp grass. Secondly, "soggy mess" is hardly a respectful way of addressing what is among the most sought after leftover foods in the entirety of the food universe, cold fried chicken.

Sure, you've lost the crunch, but in its place, you have the umami-packed makings of the most decadent luncheon sandwich with all those flavorsome spices from the buttermilk crust having migrated into the meat. And thirdly, I spent much of a recent weekend killing, cooking, and shelling lobsters for the precise purpose of enjoying a homemade, slow cooked Arogosta Fra Diavolo that's spicy lobter pasta after a long sojourn in the fridge.

Sludge is the last term I would use to describe the wonderfully complex melding of flavors that had soaked into the moist yet still toothsome noodles. My point, is that while there are a few foods that clearly don't benefit from a night relaxing in the refrigerator, say a Caesar salad, or last night's sushi, there are so very many more foods that do improve over time.

The article in Gizmodo does pay lip service to this:. Now leftovers are not always a bad thing. About a week and a half from now, the whole nation is going to be stuffing themselves with leftover turkey sandwiches. The reason?

For all the gross things that can happen, there's also a bunch of taste-improving reactions that take place as well. But, in my mind, it doesn't do a particularly good job at explaining exactly how "chemicals [in certain foods] work some delicious magic.

Well, foods that do improve have an important commonality; they include a multitude of ingredients each one with distinct aromatic properties - such as onion, garlic, peppers, herbs.

Basically, these are anything that adds flavor to a dish. During the cooking process, there are a certain number of reactions that take place concurrently in a very complex setting.

Aromatic ingredients tend to undergo a larger number of reactions that produce flavor and aroma compounds which in turn react with the proteins and the starches. In general, as the food cools and is left to sit in the fridge, and then re-heated, some of these reactions continue to take place resulting in improved flavor. For example, a plain omelet refrigerated and then reheated will likely taste no different from a fresh plain omelet, but, an omelet cooked with onions, garlic, pepper and broccoli will have a distinctly different and more flavorful taste.

Aromatics aside, is there anything else that contributes to the flavor of a dish that can help boost its lasting power? When you make a meat sauce or a stew, you brown the meat first over heat. The actual chemical reaction that's taking place is called the Maillard reaction. The sugar, or rather the carbon molecules, in the protein is reacting with the amino acids to produce something in the region of 24 reactions.

One of these is polymerization, another is color change and a third is the production of lots of flavor compounds, including caramel. Then there's another chemical reaction, caramelization, which, though it produces browning and is also promoted by heat , is an entirely different process to the Maillard reaction. Here, sugars combine with other sugars to form larger molecules, the shape and size of which decide the color and flavor of the end product.

Let's cut to the chase; why do my curries always taste better the next day? When you consume something straight from the stove, chances are your taste buds can pick up on all of the distinct reaction products or flavor and aroma compounds that have been produced and can differentiate between them.

So while you're tasting the flavor profile of the curry in its entirety, you're also tasting the individual flavor notes in isolation - a characteristic that 's usually regarded as being harsh.

So if you have good taste buds, you'll detect the cinnamon, the chili, the nutmeg, the coriander etc. Pairing meat with sauce or broth makes for a next-day winner. The result is flavor compounds trapped within the gel, which is even more prominent in ground meat. Plus, giving your meat a good soak in oils and spices will help tenderize the meat, Atlas Obscura explains.

So if you've ever wondered why your red sauce-soaked meatballs are juicier the next day, now you know. As for potatoes, it's a similar process to the meat gelling. When you cook starch, it gelatinizes, and as it cools, it breaks down. After a day or two, some foods taste better than on the first go-round. Here's why. By Dalene Rovenstine.

A New York-based freelance journalist, Dalene Rovenstine often writes about food and drink and health, as well as entertainment, beauty, and other lifestyle topics. Read more. Read This Next.