Canned Tomatoes

Canned Tomatoes
The Best One's to Use
The Ones to Stay Away From!

Using quality canned tomatoes changes your tomato sauce recipe from good to great. "It's all in the sauce!". I've tried many different brands and there is a big difference between quality and taste.

So if your not making your own crushed tomatoes I want to make sure you know how to pick a great quality canned tomato.

Plum tomatoes and San Marzano tomatoes go head to head in the battle for the best in color, texture and flavor.

San Marzano tomatoes come from the Campania region in Italy from the town of San Marzano. The reason why these beautiful Heirloom breed of tomato are so sweet is they're grown in the rich and fertile volcanic soil of Mount Vesuvius. This is what makes these babies the best tomatoes in the world.

See the difference in color?

All in all you can still get a great tasting canned plum tomato and it will cost you about half the price.

I rated the tomatoes from a scale of 1-10 in the following categories:

Color(C) I was looking for a red vibrant color which makes a big difference in the appearance of your tomato sauce recipe and if the tomato was picked before it was ripe it probably isn't as sweet.

Texture(T) I want my tomatoes to be tender and smooth. Some canned tomatoes can have a tough, course or gritty texture. The tomato should almost melt in your mouth.

Taste(F) The most important feature of course. Because if the ingredients you use don't taste good then how is the Italian recipe going to taste good?

Cento: Really good brand. They do have a San marzano tomato brand but I didn't have it for the comparison. These stood up to the test well.Dei Fratelli: This brand of canned tomatoes claim to be organic and they are unsalted. They had a nice flavor and if you are on a low sodium diet you could use this brand but the texture was a little tough. It might have been the lack of salt but to me it lacked flavor.Flora: Regular canned tomatoes. This was an good brand and rated well across the board. Sweet, colorful but not as tender as I'd like.Flora San Marzano: This brand of San Marzano tomatoes was every good all around. It's hard to mess up a perfection.Nina: I was pretty happy with this brand. Although it isn't a San Marzano tomato it was very sweet and tender. They did include Basil in the can.Progresso: By far the one of the worst canned tomatoes on the market. My advice? Stay away. Lacked color, tenderness and flavor. 2 thumbs down.Puliese: Puglia is a region in Italy and where this brand of canned tomato derives. Great color and the texture and flavor were nice. Again they were not San Marzano tomatoes but they were good.Rega Rega: Another good brand of San Marzano tomatoes. I never used this brand in my tomato sauce recipes but I can tell you after doing the taste test that I will be using it. They were a little on the salty side though.Straniese San Marzano Tomatoes: Again, really hard to mess up San Marzano canned tomato. This brand was an all around good brand.Well, that concludes my comparison. Of course there are plenty of brands out there to choose from and they may not be listed here but now you know what to look for to get the most out of your Italian Pasta Sauce Recipes.

Home Page from Canned Tomatoes