I am looking into serving a couple of different types of soup and a beef chili in the restaurant. The soups are pre-made and shipped frozen to me through my food service supplier.

Do any of you do this? Any advice? Can you re-use leftover soup or chili the next day?

Thanks.

Only heat up the amount of soup you think you will use during service. There are stand-alone, thermostatically controlled crockpots made just for soups, chowders, stews, etc. If you plan on chilling and re-heating leftovers, these crocks are a gawd-send as it is VITAL that you keep the soup above 160F AT ALL TIMES.

You will need to chill leftovers to below 40F within 90 minutes (preferably less). When you re-heat, you need to reach 160F within an hour.

I strongly advise you to get the food handling standards for food chilling and reheating from your local health district.

Food poisoning from mishandling is real easy to do with soups. The toxins formed from bacterial growth DO NOT go away with heating.

i have worked in a ton of differrent restaurants, over decades.... never, never have any of them reheated left over soup for customers consumption. those heat and serve frozen soups just dont hold up a second time around. the veggies, and other ingredients, ger real mushy second time around. plus, you charge enough to off set tossing away a few cups a day.