There’s quite a selection to sort through when considering canned tomatoes. Whether they’re roasted peeled diced or whole it can sometimes seem like an impossible task to pick the style that’s right for your cooking needs—and that’s before you even get to the specific variety.
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Preserving Whole San Marzano Tomatoes for the Winter
For many chefs and home cooks San Marzanos are the undisputed stars of the canned tomato aisle. They’ve even developed quite a fan base including Ina Garten who can’t get enough of them. Of course these highly prized fruits are also much more expensive than many other varieties—usually about twice as much. So they may not be worth using in recipes that call for tomatoes to take a back seat. San Marzanos on the other hand work best in dishes that let them shine.
The popular canned tomatoes have a deliciously sweet yet savory flavor and are lower in acidity than other varieties. They also have a lower moisture content than other varieties which means they are less likely to produce a thin sauce. If you want to get the most out of your San Marzano tomatoes they are best used in simpler more tomato-heavy dishes like spaghetti pomodoro or Bolognese where the ingredient plays a starring role. However if you are making a more spicy dish like spicy beef chili or a traditional jambalaya another variety works just as well because the tomato flavor is not as prominent.
But what are San Marzanos? Simply put they are a variety of plum tomatoes that are often used for canning. Authentic San Marzano tomatoes are labeled DOP or Protected Designation of Origin and only come from the Campania region of Italy near Mount Vesuvius. San Marzanos have a long pointed shape and they have fewer seeds than other varieties. Although the seeds are available for purchase and are grown in many places outside of Campania these varieties are not the real deal. So you want to make sure you are getting authentic San Marzano tomatoes.
