Sourdough bread might be what’s keeping malls from going sour themselves.

A new economic report suggests that the proverbial glue holding some of the nation’s shopping hubs together is a chain restaurant that needs no introduction — The Cheesecake Factory.

Financial analyst Matt Reidy shared data this week that shows that 93% of loans backed by malls that contain a Cheesecake Factory are up to date on their payments, as opposed to the cheesecake-less malls that pay just 72% of their loans on time.

“The causal relationship is likely the result of strong site selection by the [Cheesecake Factory] rather than the restaurant saving a failing mall,” he wrote.

“Regardless of whether it is strong site selection by the company or, less likely, the restaurant having an impact on mall performance, the relationship is certainly there,” Reidy added.

The Post reached out to Cheesecake Factory reps for comment.

Reidy also noted that the malls’ lifeblood — coming by proxy of colossal burgers, gargantuan entrees, and decadent desserts — comes at a time when brick-and-mortar retail is facing a crisis of survival.

“The transition from department and apparel stores to e-commerce has dramatically impacted enclosed malls and it continues to play out. Numerous studies have shown that shoppers don’t visit enclosed malls nearly as often as in the past,” he wrote.

The number of US malls has declined from about 2,500 in the 1980s to an estimated 700 today, the Wall Street Journal reported last year.

Reidy, who went with a “Mean Girls” theme for his statistical blog post — it published on Oct. 3 — also noted that open-air “lifestyle centers” are what consumers are finding fetch nowadays.

“They prefer to park close to the store they want to visit and walk in directly rather than find their way through the maze of department stores designed to make you walk past more of their stores before getting to the interior of the mall,” he explained.