What should I look for when choosing tomatoes for pasta sauces?
What factors should I take into account when selecting tomatoes for sauces?
Background: I'm growing my own tomatoes, and I need to start germinating soon. Taste and production are my 2 first concerns. We usually can about 30 to 40 qt. a year but want to buy less from the stores to do it.
Vendors are pretty good about listing a dizzying array of growing factors and expected results... But I'm not entirely clear on what I should be focusing on when it comes to making sauce.
Best Answer
From a production standpoint, you might actually be better off asking this question on the gardening site.
In general, however, for canning purposes you'll want to select a 'determinate' variety -- they tend to have all of their fruit ripen around the same time, rather than having it be spread out across many weeks. Indeterminate tend to be better for tomatoes that you might want to use for salads or other purposes, as you won't suddenly be stuck with a glut of tomatoes that you can't use all of.
Your other gardening considerations are if the plant is more bush-like, or more vine-like, as it'll affect how much you need to do to manage them. The vine ones you have to keep checking them every couple of days to make sure the vines are fed back through the tomato cages so they don't start drooping against the ground when they're laden with fruit.
In general, you're going to want to select a plum-style tomato. Sometimes they also label tomatoes as 'sauce' or 'paste' tomatoes. Other varieties of tomatoes tend to be a bit more wet and can require more cooking down, although other varieties may have some advantages.
As for the specific variety, San Marzano and Roma are two well known varieties, but there are now a large number of hybrids that I'm just not familiar with. I would personally select for varieties that do well in your local climate, and can deal with the specifics of your garden (eg, how much space you have to work with) ... but again, ask that on the gardening site.
In the article that I linked to above, they actually recommend blending multiple varieties, but this is more difficult in a home garden unless they all ripen at the same time. You could always plan for the bulk to come from a determinate variety, and blend in some from one or more indeterminate varieties, or plant a couple of determinate varieties, or stagger them some to try to get batch sizes that will be easier to deal with.
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Quick Answer about "What should I look for when choosing tomatoes for pasta sauces?"
Ideally, you want your saucy tomatoes to have more flesh and fewer seeds. This will provide a heartier sauce, better likely to stick to your pasta and provide a satisfying texture. You also want ripe tomatoes at their most flavourful.Which tomatoes are best for pasta sauce?
Though you could use any tomato, Roma and other paste tomatoes\u2014with meaty texture with little to no seeds\u2014are said to develop the best flavor when cooked down into a delicious sauce.How do you pick out tomato sauce?
What to look for on the labelWhat are the best tomatoes for canning spaghetti sauce?
Best Roma Tomato Varieties for Canning All around, Roma-style tomatoes will produce the highest yield of sauce in the least amount of time. If you're looking to can tomato sauce in bulk or make your own tomato paste, Roma tomatoes are your best bet.What tomatoes are Italian cooking used for their classic tomato sauces?
Roma: This is the classic tomato used in Italian cooking. It's popular for canning and making tomato paste, and is readily available. Though the classic Roma is 3 inches long, larger varieties are now available.How to Choose the RIGHT Tomatoes
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Answer 2
San Marzano and Viva Italia make very tasty sauces if you grow your own, and boil down the seed-strained mash using only the ripe fruit. It doesn't take many green ones to make the taste too sharp.
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