Are San Marzano Tomatoes actually worth it?

Marcella Hazan's sauce is disgusting. I'll never understand why it's a thing. Lately I've been using DOP San Marzano tomatoes and think they make a big difference.

Thank you!! Clears up a lot of questions for me. I would love a downloadable / printable copy of your butter chicken recipe (for now I’ll just hand write it.) Good job! 😊

To me, it’s not very shocking that the least expensive is the least tasty when you pay more for something you should get a better quality product.

As a mexican
You are all welcome

i grew san marzano tomatoes and they turned out great! i made marinara and it was fresH!

I think I got some San Marzano (or close) seed mixed in with what was supposed to be German Pink. Decided to make some sauce with them before I knew what they were and it was easily the best sauce I had ever made. They blew away German Heirloom or Better Boys, even though they make very tasty eating tomatoes. Oddly enough the San Marzano were kind of junky to eat raw, they had a bad texture that was like what you'd get from leaving a hot house tomato in a fridge too long, and the flavor was insipid. But cooked, they suddenly shined.

Holy shit! You actually used the can opener the correct way!

Or here's an idea; make some compost, develop a balanced organic soil, plant some seeds and grow your own. Then learnbto can your own. The results are far and away superior to any commercially canned crap.

You taught culinary arts? So who taught you? ALL farm raised salmon is absolute garbage, at best, and the Frazier river and Norwegian is literally poison. Do a little research. We raise our own pork, on pasture, and pity anyone foolish enough to buy that grey or dyed crap that the chains sell. Find a local farmer/rancher on Eat Wild and experience REAL food. Meat from animals raised on pasture is a completely different, and healthy, food from the industrial feed lot and confinement sources. The latter isn't fit for dog food, but people in the US have been conditioned to buy and eat it 'cuz it's cheap. It's also typically 10 to 15% water by wright, so figure that into your price when comparing real food to the industrial poisoned crap. I do whole heartedly agree that folks need to learn to cook, but there are only two choices with seafood; wild caught and poison. ALL of the farmed garbage is raised using pharmaceuticals and chemicals that truly make it dangerous to humans, but when there's a buck to be made the producers don't care. And the FDA & USDA are completely useless. They actually contribute to and encourage production of the unhealthy crap all in the name of cheap food. You are what you eat, and you get what you pay for, so learn to cook and learn to read, beginning with labels. If there's something on that label that you don't recognize or can't pronounce, that's a great indication that you shouldn't.

PLEASE do a mayonnaise brand comparison next

they are only worth it if you cant get a better alternative.

Glad I live in Europe

Another eye-opener! Will be using your suggestions in the future.

H‑E‑B in the house! 🎉

I’ve tasted many different kinds of canned tomatoes. Sclafani or Jersey Fresh (same maker) are the sweetest and low acid. I have to order them cause they are not available where I moved in Virginia. When I’m NY or NJ I fill my cart with them.

What about not fresh winter tomatoes cooked for a pyre vs canned onse.

Many of your tomatoes are now grown in China then ship to Italy and labeled there 😮read the labels. 😬

This video auto played and I thought I was watching the why files at first lol

di-NA-poli

Did not bother watching till the end too many adverts

Cento San Marzano is what my Italian grandparents used in their Sunday sauce along with Marsala wine. Nowhere can I find anything like it in "Italian resturants"
I am telling you that san marzano makes amazing sauce.

Very interesting,thanks for sharing

This "guy here" is offending my boy @futurecanoe here!!

6+ bucks fpr a can of tomatos lmao. in germany they are under 1 euro.

Thanks for the video, I was really hoping you would include Muir Glen tomatoes in your test. Bon appetit found good California tomatoes to be as good or better than imported in their pizza saga. I always but Muir Glen but I'll definitely be doing some blind testing now.

My only real take away is that DOP is good... But even though it's the most expensive it's never the best in any situation, so it's pretty much NEVER worth getting, because for any situation there's always something that's both better and cheaper.

Its like wine...except it's tomatoes!

pH is a log scale

this was great

Cento obviously is the best of all these brands but if you can buy fresh tomatoes from the farmers market you can prepare and made an amazing sauce and feel free to put a teaspoon of sugar to kill the acidic taste, trust me that a long way

Thanks for an outstanding, informative vid! Extra virgin olive oil comparisons warrants an Ethan deep dive

I find it a little funny that a lot of fuss is made over tomatoes from Italy when tomatoes are actually from the Americas. I have to wonder if, like with corn, there are some amazing traditional growers tucked away somewhere in the Americas whose produce could go toe to toe (and quite possibly beat) the quality of the coveted Italian ones.

Funnily enough, one of the best fresh tomatoes I've had were grown in a green house somewhere in Canada. They were the first tomatoes I ever cooked with that smelled fruity (keep in mind that tomatoes are fruits, biologically speaking) and their flavor was incredible.

I like tomatoes

I want to know if the sour/acidic taste can be countered with something alkaline like baking soda. Could theoretically you get the same effect as the more expensive tomato by adding this?

I had a pizzeria and hired an Italian pizzaiolo, he only ordered super expensive products imported from Italy pretending that they're the best. Food cost went through the roof costing me sometimes 4 to 5 times the price of local products with similar quality. I was ruined.
With time and experience i found out that i could make way better pizza with quality local products and way cheaper.
Trust me guys, Italians don't have the best products, they only know how to market their brands and convince people to spend extra for Italian labels.
I did some research and found out that the flour being marketed as Italian is mainly American wheat that Italians import from the United States, do minor transformations on it, put an Italian label on it and export it as Italian flour to American markets, selling it 4 to 5 times the price of American branded flour with very similar quality or even better quality.
They do the same tricks with many other products like coffee and olive oil. I also found out that Italians import affordable quality bulk olive oil from Argentina and North Africa, they mix it with low quality Italian olive oil, and export it with an Italian label making big profits.
Never trust the names like Italian Olive oil, San Marzano Italian tomatoes or Caputo super expensive Italian flour... it's all marketing. Be self-confident, taste the products, give a chance to local quality brands and judge by yourself.

I use whole canned tomatoes all the time. San Marzano tomatoes are way better then Heinz tomatoes. But they have to be imported from Italy. Read the labels. In some stores Italian tomatoes just a little more expensive then American brands.

its unfortunate that most people wont have the opportunity to savor the difference just because the price points between $1.30 and $5-6 dollars is so stark the vast majority of folks wont feel the need to spend the extra change for what they see as a basal ingredient. Another way being poor robs the working class of the true joys of the world and incentive for people to eat out instead of make food at home. :c

I bought 1.5 bushels of Roma tomatoes and processed them into a gorgeous thick sauce and bottled them. Nothing in a can can even compete.

I'm shocked by the prices tbh, even the generic store brand ones are almost triple the price of store brand ones in Austria, we obviously have a price advantage on the italian ones due to bing a neighboring country, comparable canned san marzano costs about half here

Great video but the amount of ad makes this unfun to watch. If you have any control over the interruptions less would make this easier to watch. 6 (at least) ads in 23 minutes is overkill.

fake

Cento is the best available in the US. In terms of value and quality. Ask any serious pizzeria.

Making Shakshuka with canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones (that are also cheaper than 4$) is such sacrilege lol I'm glad you didn't do it.

Muir Glen is my favorite. I have tried the Cento several times and still like the MG.

I used to grow Speckled Romans, no wait, they were Striped Romans, for my dad, so that his tomato sandwiches would have a lot of flesh and little juice.

It's worth noting that when surveyed, pro chefs are more likely to buy generic ingredients instead of name brand . . and medical professional, the same things with OTC drugs.

So here;s the thing. If you make each sauce exactly the same , then Ethan's test suggests your sauce comes out better if you avoid the low end tomatoes. But . . .

. . . what if you give let any really good cook make their usual sauce once using each type of tomato? What happens then? After tasting as you go and making adjustments, would blind taste testing still yield a clear difference? I taste and adjust for acid and sweetness as I go. (And I don't like a really sweet sauce. And after all, it's going on pasta, and there will be cheese.)

So I still really wonder how much end-result difference it makes in the hands of a skilled cook. Just sayin'.

The canned tomatoes all taste metallic to me. Try the ones in glass.

Well I would only buy an acidic ingredient that’s been stored in a glass container, no added anything. ALDIs maybe or Coles. But you really need to read the label. 😊