Best Tomato to make Sauce

[christian1971]

Which (specific name) tomato do you think makes the best sauce for cooking spaghetti, lasagna and so forth?

[Dak]

I'm partial to BrokenBar's strain of Costoluto Genovese roasted ala settfest recipe with whatever else is ripe at the time.

[coronabarb]

I like Carolyn Male's answer...
the best sauce tomato is the best tasting one you grow. You might have to cook it longer.

There are many nice paste type tomatoes that have less juice and are more meaty. I like Amish Paste. Opalka is loved by many.

[joseph]

The best sauce tomato in my garden, is any variety that manages to produce ripe fruit, regardless of what people call it. Paste tomatoes rarely meet that criteria in my garden.

[drew51]

I agree that any tomato can go in the pot, but when you grow true paste tomatoes, the job is a lot easier. It's a lot of work making sauce. I just started trying various paste tomatoes. So I'm sure many good ones are out there. BTW Amish paste is not really a paste tomato. Romeo was excellent, big, productive, very dry, perfect for sauce. Opalka too is excellent. Not as big fairly productive. Some report problems with BER. Polish Linguisa is late ripening and came into production when the others were slowing down. So that was nice to have too. That's it for me. All others I tried, failed to be productive, were small, or didn't meet my needs. Dozens and dozens yet to try too. This year I'm growing mostly eating tomatoes. next year I'll grow sauce and pastes again. Starting late this year too as my light space is occupied by other plants this winter.

[ilex]

My wife likes "Xodos de enramar".

[ContainerTed]

This subject has been discussed and cussed and dissed and beaten up unmercifully. It depends on your tastebuds on your tongue. Many folks here make up sauces and salsa and other tomato based products and a lot of that gets canned.

Personally, I agree with a couple of the comments above. I think most paste type tomatoes are blandish and overrated. I also think the tomato to use is the one you are growing that tastes really good. If I want that "commercial" flavor to my spaghetti sauce, I'll go buy a can. I can get a large can for $1.00, and have a selection of several flavors. But if I want that flavor that only can come when harvest is at its peak, I have to do something different.

I make tomato juice from any and all tomatoes that are on the counter. I remove the seed gel and seeds (for seed saving) and then put the remains thru my food mill to remove the skins and any missed seeds. This goes into the big pot for slow reduction of the liquid. I generally spend an entire day from early to late for each batch. With this thick tomato juice (about the consistency of tomato sauce from a can), I can then make all the other things at my leisure or whim fresh each time. Sauces, salsas, etc. taste like they were made in mid season.

I do tend to limit the number of tart tomatoes in my juice. With those, I make a special batch of Tomato Preserves (Jam).

I basically don't like to use only paste types for one main reason. If I want that kind of flavor, it only costs $1.00 for a 25 oz (+,-) can. Even then from time to time, I've added some of my juice and then cooked it down a bit and it tastes so much better.

I say it all the time. My homemade tomato juice tastes like drinking an heirloom tomato.

Take care

[BackyardFarm]

The last four years I have simply grown half Romas and half San Marzanos for my canning needs.
This year will be very different.

Last year I discovered how tasty a sauce made from fresh sungolds and fresh basil is over zucchini noodles. So in 2016 I will be freezing plenty of sungolds for sauce later in the year and keeping a pot of basil under my lights year round.
I also planted more black tomatoes (love that flavor!) and discovered that Yaponskiy Trufel Chernyi (AKA Japanese Black Trifele) was very prolific in a not great tomato year and made delicious sauce for canning. I will be planting some of those as well as some other piriform or pear shaped tomatoes in 2016.
I've heard great things about mixing tomatoes for sauce/salsa.

If you look around a bit you'll find lots of people here love hearts for canning. Experiment! Find a midseason heart or paste (or four, or five, or...) and see what happens

[MissS]

The best sauce tomato is the best that my garden has to offer. Fresh, full flavored, and delicious. This usually does not include a paste type tomato.

[tash11]

I asked this on a cooking forum once. They all said "roma".

I am still experimenting (probably always will be), but a few years ago I made some excellent sauce with black prince and green zebra. Then one year when I couldn't grow much myself I got a 'great deal' on 3 bushels of 2nds for $10! They were juicy so they took forever to cook down as expected. And the end result just wasn't worth it. I used the same recipe I used with the black prince and green zebra, but it was just bland and not as good as before. IDK what variety they were but bleh. (FWIW the black prince and green zebra also probably had some others thrown in, but I had made some fresh salsa with only individual toms for a 'sauce taste test' and those were the winners even with my kids). The main other one that year was Peiping Chieh which was very productive.

I think that good tomato sauce is much like a good apple cider or pie, you should use different varieties of different tasting ones to get the best result.

[drew51]

For me my problem is a tomato that tastes great fresh, at least to me, makes a terrible sauce, it's way too sweet for one thing. I guess I tend to like sweet when fresh, but I hate sweet tomato sauces. I find the paste extremely tasty in sauce. Leagues ahead of fresh eating tomatoes. It all comes down to taste buds.

Tash11 mentions apple cider. You can use any apple, but the best ciders use cider apples. These are usually mushy fresh, and not that good, some exceptions though. I feel tomatoes are the same. Many comments on the blandness of paste tomatoes, yet we have hundreds of varieties for a reason, and that reason is sauce.
Backyardfarm you mention making sauce with Sungolds. I did that too, and I would describe it as the worst tomato sauce I ever tasted. We all are obviously extremely different in what we consider good.

[gssgarden]

Shannon's


Greg

[Cole_Robbie]

Last year I grew Prune Verte, a green when ripe plum-sized tomato. I haven't tried it yet, but I think it would make one heck of a green sauce.

[BackyardFarm]

Originally Posted by drew51

Backyardfarm you mention making sauce with Sungolds. I did that too, and I would describe it as the worst tomato sauce I ever tasted. We all are obviously extremely different in what we consider good.

Lol. I knew that would be a controversial statement. I added butter, cream, and a bit of bacon crumbled into it too, so not really a typical sauce...most like a carbonara. Drew51, you are so right. You can dip sungolds into chocolate. They are so super sweet! Sauce made from them is not for everyone.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by gssgarden

Shannon's


Greg

Especially if Shannon makes it, right?