Tinned or fresh tomatoes when making sauce?

Something else to consider is that tomatoes are VERY seasonal. In the 21st century, we expect to be able to get anything we want all year long. Well, we can, but there is no guarantee it will be good.

Good canned tomatoes are picked and canned at perfect ripeness. For me it is a trade off -- good tomatoes from a can, or bad fresh tomatoes.

CD
 
caseydog said:
Something else to consider is that tomatoes are VERY seasonal. In the 21st century, we expect to be able to get anything we want all year long. Well, we can, but there is no guarantee it will be good.

Good canned tomatoes are picked and canned at perfect ripeness. For me it is a trade off -- good tomatoes from a can, or bad fresh tomatoes.

CD
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Very good point... The tomato season in the UK traditionally runs from June-ish to October-ish, some growers though are extending this by growing indoors under lights. There's an environmental consideration too about using tinned out of your region's season as it reduces food miles and carbon footprint.
 
I buy tomatoes all year long, and they always taste better than the tinned stuffed. Truth be told I always buy the cheapest tins in the store, I've never tried the more expensive ones, they're just as expensive as 1kg of fresh tomatoes and I know the fresh tomatoes taste good to me. My great grandmother used to say before fridges we ate everything in season and everything tasted good nowadays we eat everything all year long and nothing tastes good. I'm sure I don't know the "real" taste of a lot of the stuff I eat since I buy everything from the supermarket.
 
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Morning Glory said:
This surprised me. They are such a useful and versatile thing. What don't you like about them?
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I find them too sweet and rather sickly. Perhaps I am also influenced by the tinned tomatoes that used to be served in a staff canteen that I used to use. I believe these were eventually purchased by the Norwegian Navy as depth charges.
 
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We had tomatoes on toast for tea last night, sliced over buttered toast with lots salt n pepper.
From our garden and the sweetest ever. When kit of season it's not unheard oh to heat canned in a pot and serve over toast. I prefer fresh from the garden but I'm ok with both.

Russ
 
I've twice tried making a tomato sauce with fresh tomatoes.
  • The first time, they were the standard crappy ersatz roma tomatoes from the supermarket: all of them uniform shape and size, all of them uniformly the same shade of red, and all of them uniformly tasteless. The sauce was so bad that I threw it out.
  • The second time, I bought hot house tomatoes, the kind you can buy on the vine at the supermarket. Tomatoes will ripen on the vine even after the vine-and-tomato are removed from the plant. These tasted much better. I spent the time blanching and peeling the skins, then took the time to make the sauce. After all that work, I couldn't honestly say they tasted any better than a can of high quality San Marzano tomatoes.
If the fresh tomatoes were markedly better than the canned tomatoes, I would change my opinion about this. Until then, I am going to save the time and use canned tomatoes.

When it comes to chili, I can't imagine using fresh tomatoes. Whatever nuanced quality improvement the fresh variety might bring will certainly be trampled by the spices of the chili. But, it seems clear that the reason for this is the quality of fresh tomatoes I have available to me here.
 
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Fresh tomatoes certainly have an edge when it comes to making tomato sauce, and even I don't deny myself the pleasure of making my own, sometimes even leaving the skin and seeds on because they don't bother me at all. But it depends on the tomatoes.
However, I find tinned tomatoes very good and practical. If the tomato sauce it's too sour I add a carrot, if it's too sweet I add some herbs as well as salt and pepper.
 
Mostly I use tinned tomatoes, the cheapest I can get and almost every time I get a decent sauce, well for my taste buds. My Sous-Chef and one of my masters are from italy and they make way better tomatoe sauces than I do, very balanced, little bit sweet, little bit spicy and pancetta for the rich feeling. Oh, and they always take tinned tomatoes in the restaurant. But I don't know if they would choose fresh tomatoes over tinned, even when the only restriction would be the taste.
Stay healthy
 
Well, I use canned.

We had a garden, it was unfarmed for many years and that back soil put out many flavorful things, tomatos included. The yield was large and I decided to make sauce out of them.

I don't mean add them to sauce, I mean make them into the sauce, save few for chunks etc. Wel thi became a real operation. First blanche and peel, then pushed them through a strainer. Accumulated in the freezer until we had it done.

Bottom line is it took lnost the entire output of the garden to make one decent pot of sauce.

There is a brand of canned I like - Pictsweet. No sugar in it and great tomato flavor.

One thing if you intend to eat raw tomatoes, get some back salt. It is excellent on them.

T
 
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