Mutti San Marzano peeled tomatoes, 6x 400g

Product Information

These tomatoes came out of the can a vivid red color—exactly what you want for making marinara sauce or pizza sauce. The Alessi tomatoes were a bit softer than other options we tried, but for sauces where you really want the tomato to break down and melt into the mixture, that’s ideal. Additionally, these tomatoes weren’t oversweet—another great feature for cooked sauces. In 2000, Mutti introduced the Pomodorino d’Oro award (Golden Tomato) to recognise and reward the farmers who supply the highest quality tomatoes whilst using sustainable practices.Each year farmers compete to win this highly coveted prize. The prize includes a trophy and a monetary bonus and the award is an incentive for their suppliers to continuously improve and invest in their produce, which ultimately ensures the products created by Mutti are of the highest quality. These tomatoes were exactly what our team wanted of San Marzano tomatoes: sweet without that bracing acidity. While canned, these tomatoes were still plump and juicy. Mutti believes every great recipe deserves a great tomato and that there is a best fitting tomato for every dish. From traditional chopped tomatoes for cooking from scratch to ready-made pasta sauces created with traditional recipes and modern cooking in mind, Mutti offers inspiration for all home cooks.

Diced: The majority of diced tomatoes on the market include calcium chloride, a preservative added to retain their firmness and shape. Reach for diced when you want distinct tomato chunks in whatever you’re cooking—say, a big pot of chili or baked nachos. Diced tomatoes without calcium chloride (sometimes labeled as “chopped”) break down more readily. In all our tests, we tasted all of the tomatoes twice: once straight out of the can and heated through, and then again made into Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce. In doing so, we’ve encountered a huge range—from tomatoes that were sweet enough to eat straight out of the can to ones that carried a whiff of dead animal. We were also surprised to learn that price didn’t always correspond to quality. Tarantella: (400g) 85p These have a nice, deep, red colour. Joe and Dino declared them “just above average”. Available from Morrisons. Score: 3/10 One of the best ways to make use of a can of San Marzano tomatoes is to make pasta sauce. San Marzano tomatoes are slightly sweet, not too acidic and lend themselves well to flavors like basil and oregano which you’ll find in this marinara recipe. And the best San Marzano tomatoes for your homemade sauces have to be Alessi Pomodoro San Marzano, according to our Test Kitchen.

Pizza sauce

To find the best of the best canned tomatoes, our Test Kitchen experts sampled nine San Marzano tomato brands. The tomatoes were tasted blindly and our prep crew also sliced, diced and pureed these tomatoes to see how they were to work with. All the while our pros kept these criteria in mind: Having worked in the food and restaurant industry for a decade, I can tell you that no two brands of canned tomatoes are exactly alike. Some tomatoes are velvety, brilliantly red, and full of flavor, while others are tough, underripe, and insipid. To date, we’ve assessed over 25 different cans of whole peeled tomatoes—some with our colleagues at NYT Cooking—to find the best. I have great experience with their canned San Marzano tomatoes, that I use for my own pizza sauce. So I’m familiar with Mutti, and their products. I therefore believed this would be a really interesting pizza sauce to try. Mutti Pizza Sauce Ingredients In our quest for perfection, Joe sacrificed four tins from his precious collection. Dino chaperoned two tinned and two jarred tomatoes. I brought the rest, a mix of tinned tomatoes from online delicatessens and supermarkets. Napolina, Waitrose own brand, Heinz, Mr Organic and La Tarantella, all of which can be found in high-street grocers, didn’t score badly but paled in taste beside brands imported from Italy. In general, the standard was higher than we expected, although Ocado’s unpleasant own-brand offering was dubbed “a crime against humanity” by Joe. Joe’s years of tomato tasting had taught him “not to be deceived by trophies, baubles and badges that make them look impressive, when they don’t actually taste so good”. He was inspired. “I’m going to start eating my collection and experimenting,” he proclaimed. Another consistency throughout Mutti’s history and still present in Mutti today is the company values that are evident in everything they do: sustainability, quality and respect. Mutti provides farmers the resources to ensure sustainable farming techniques, such as the use of drip irrigation and soil humidity meters. As well, in 2010, Mutti began a partnership with WWF Italy to reduce the water footprint through the supply chain of the tomato, saving 1 billion litres of water in just four years.

After much slicing, dicing and tasting, our Test Kitchen team found four brands of canned tomatoes that really stood out. Here are the favorites and how to use each. Best Homegrown Flavor: Hunt’s San Marzano Style Tomatoes

Opera

Lastly, and most importantly, how does it taste on pizza? To try the sauce, I made a classic Pizza margarita with mozzarella and fresh basil. Appearance: How do the tomatoes look coming out of the can? Are they a rich red color? More orange? Are the tomatoes intact and whole or are they squished and broken apart? When it comes to tomatoes, quality is important. We’ve used our fair share of tinned tomato products over the years and come to realise that not all tins of tomatoes are created equal – there are massive differences in quality and flavour depending where you buy and how much you’re willing to spend. Good tomato products should have a nice deep red colour, a pure tomato flavour, a freshness and a sweetness. That’s not always easy to find, but for our money, Mutti tomato products have always delivered on all fronts. We compared like with like, an initial tasting of 21 different types of raw tomato, narrowing it down to the top eight, which I cooked down with olive oil, salt, fresh basil and garlic. Finally, we tried each sauce with a forkful of spaghetti.

Made with authentic Italian recipes and classic Italian seasoning, Mutti pizza sauce has a full bodied flavour and brings a traditional touch to your homemade pizzas, providing you with a vibrant base for your next creation. Cirio (400g): 95p “Not bad actually cooked,” observered Dino “but over-pasteurised”. These are sweet, with a rich colour and some acidity. Available in most supermarkets. Score: 3.5/10 Tester after tester remarked that these Italian-style tomatoes from Cento tasted like a satisfying San Marzano tomato plus a little something extra. Of course, our Test Kitchen pros were right on the money: These tomatoes are real San Marzanos canned with a touch of salt and basil. Whole tomatoes are gently steamed and peeled before being immersed in a smooth velvety passata. These tomatoes have a delicate flavour and a firm and fleshy texture which remains even after long and slow cooks. They are extremely versatile – use them whole, sliced, chopped, crushed or blitzed depending on your recipe. I must admit, in my early pizza career I did try a lot of store-bought pizza sauces, and they all tasted pretty bad. Some were too sweet (probably filled with cornstarch and other nasty things you don’t want in your pizza sauce). Others barely tasted like tomatoes at all (I don’t even know what was in those sauces…). I therefore gave completely up on store-bought sauce and promised myself many years ago that I would never buy a supermarket pizza sauce again. But after I heard about Mutti’s pizza sauce, I thought maybe I had to give store-bought pizza sauce one last chance. What is Mutti Pizza Sauce?The main ingredient (99%) in Mutti pizza sauce is fresh tomatoes. In addition to that, it contains salt, basil, and oregano. Mutti’s recipe is therefore very similar to traditional Neapolitan pizza sauce. Since no animal products are used in the sauce, it’s also vegan. San Marzano and DOP: These terms are sometimes conflated. San Marzano tomatoes, which are prized for their mellow flavor, can be grown anywhere. Certain San Marzano tomatoes are certified DOP, which guarantees that they’ve been grown, processed, and canned in a specific geographical zone in Italy. As our tests show, neither term is necessarily an indicator of flavor or quality. Mutti pizza sauce can’t completely replace authentic Neapolitan pizza sauce, but it comes pretty close. The flavor is delicious, and it works perfectly on Pizza Margherita. I don’t think you’ll find any better pizza sauce in your local grocery store! Conclusion If you’re making chili, minestrone or other hearty soups, odds are the recipe will call for a can or two of tomatoes. While many recipes will suggest stewed or diced tomatoes, our Test Kitchen says substitute in a can of San Marzano tomatoes—particularly Mutti Pomodoro San Marzano. All you have to do is dice the tomatoes to the right size and consistency.

Even though the sauce is made from fresh, quality tomatoes, it can’t live up to the standard of San Marzano tomatoes. The can doesn’t state what kind of tomatoes are used, but I suspect it’s a cheaper type of plum tomatoes, despite the price of the sauce being as high, or even higher than, canned San Marzano tomatoes. In fact, the flavor of these tomatoes was so good, you could use them in any recipe where tomatoes are the star. These Hunt’s tomatoes will shine.Quality ingredients are essential for a good pizza sauce, especially Neapolitan-style sauce. Because it consists of so few ingredients, they all need to be of top quality. Mutti is known for their quality, non-GMO (non-genetically modified) tomatoes, so I was really looking forward to giving it a try. The taste of tomatoes was good, and I could also taste the lovely basil flavor. The saltiness didn’t bother me when the sauce was used on the pizza. It was well-balanced and tasted like it was made from decent ingredients. How Does Mutti Pizza Sauce Compare to Neapolitan Pizza Sauce?