I always cook the rice separately and store separately. I add the amount I want in the bottom of the bowl and then the soup. The only thing that has worked for me is the extra fine noodles in chicken noodle soup. Those seem okay the next day.

http://www.publix.com/pd/publix-egg-noodles-fine/RIO-PCI-100810?ch=9.19.2.

Any brand, but the above was all I could pull up on line.

I've never cooked barley, but I would think it would be the same as rice.

When I reheat the soup, I usually keep the rice cold and heat the soup a little extra hot, then add the cold rice to the serving bowl.

I cook the grains (rice, barley, orzo or noodles) in the stock to be used for the soup, then remove them and store separately, while finishing the soup. If that's too fussy, then simply cook the grains in water. This avoids the grains swelling up and either absorbing all the liquid in the soup overnight or become very mushy or both. Barley really swells and mushes up, rice to some degree, pasta (noodles, orzo) less so.

Oh, how does Campbells Soup do it? I'm not sure, the science of packaged food is pretty sophisticated. They may add much less grain to account for the swelling/absorbing, or they may have some clever way to reduce the swelling/absorbing. Perhaps the sodium and thickener in canned soup is involved.

John Liu has the right answer. Cook the noodles/grain while heating the stock, strain then add to each bowl at the end of making the soup. It also gives them some flavor. I, too, have a love of "next-day" soup and stew but the gummy noodles or disappearing pasta is not nice. I keep extra cooked noodles, pasta, rice, barley, even beans in the freezer that can be defrosted in micro and then added at the last minute to "replay meals".

As for canned soup - they use a lot of other ingredients we don't use for stabilizers and everything is in suspended animation until we open the can - that's why we call it pressure canning - no air in there to degrade contents.

I've also used John's method of cooking noodles and grains in the soup stock. It works nicely. Just cooking in water is good, too. I've also just added more pasta or rice as the soup is reheating on a low simmer. This works especially well with fresh pasta, such as tortellini, since it cooks quickly. Just did that recently with adding cheese tortellini to minestrone.

I prefer my rice cooked in water, not broth. The extra rice may then be used in different dishes other than the soup. We also use rice as a plain side dish often and would not be able to do that if seasoned by the broth.

You do have to measure the correct amount so that when it fills up with soup it's in the right proportion, or cook separately, but the real issue is with what it is you're using. Some kinds of rice swell up and keep absorbing until they're supersaturated enough to "rain". Basmati stays toothsome longer. Brown rice has more capacity to absorb, but still can get soggy. I find that barley doesn't go weird in soup, even after freezing. It gets fluffy, but not mushy. But I think that's whole grain, not pearl. (I haven't made it in awhile, but have been eating it. :) )

It's similar with noodles. The firmer the grain, the more complex the noodle, the longer it takes to get waterlogged. That is, fancy pasta works better than cheap noodles. Homemade one eggs noodles are soft to begin with and do fine. I don't freeze noodles in the soup, however. That's never going to be good.

None are for more than a day or two. Even if they don't absorb themselves to death, they will get soggy/soft.

If I really care about the texture, or am using spaetzle (dumplings) or anything tender like that. For that, and greens, and other things that aren't going to last well, I portion them out into the bowls first and add the soup on top. Second helpings the same way.

I certainly have no problem cooking noodles or rice separately and adding to soup as needed but will experiment with plain barley versus pearled barley a bit. I do know that the pearled version swells noticeably after the first go round and ends up with an odd mushy texture the second time around. I tend to cook noodles and rice in slightly salted water but typically only because I forget to cook them in chicken broth which I always keep on hand.

Thanks to all for your advice.

I have not done a noodle soup to freeze for this reason, but rice, barley, bean soups I always cook and freeze with foodsaver bags. After thawing, 2 minutes in the microwave doesn't seem to "mush" them, in fact they are quite often more tasty!

I always add my beans, lentils, split peas , rice, noodles, etc to the soup as I'm preparing it ( different time in the process depending..) . After we have had the first go ' round, I strain off the solids and store them separate from the liquid.

...and then you get that super dumb goober black bean that says "Ha, I'm 80 years old and I will never soften or ever be edible".

Sadly I have no advice, since it's a non-problem for me.

Barley never gets too soft IMPE, and I mostly like extra soft noodles. I'm going to make a spinach, chicken & farfalle soup tonight, and hubby and I both enjoy those big wide noodles when they're soft. Maybe that's because we both have dental work to watch out for.

I do not care for rice in soup - unless it's wild rice, which does not seem to get mushy either.

For me the problem lies in calculating the amount of noodles or barley so the finished/leftover soup doesn't become too thick.

Actually my issue isn't that the beans, pasta , whatever get soft...it's that they soak up all the broth and I'm left with something closer to stew than soup.

I can't imagine going to all that trouble. I cook ditalini in my Pasta e Fagioli and Amish egg noodles in my chicken soup. Same with pearl barley in my split pea soup. Never have an issue with mushy pasta/noodles in leftovers. The leftover split pea soup still has a nice chew from the barley.

I'm fine with leftover barley in soup, and won't strain it out. Sometimes by the next day, the soup may be too thick, so I simply add more water or broth. To me, it still tastes good. Sometimes, better. Same with beans... which are nearly always better at a later meal.

I'm not a fan of rice, except wild rice, in soups. Even the first day, never mind further days, the texture doesn't appeal. (Don't like risotto, either.)

Noodles and pasta can be problematic, for those I simply try to avoid leftovers... with varying success. Some of this will depend on type of noodle.

I am going to try the suggestion above about straining the broth before storing. That seems the simplest to me. Thanks Chase!