Canned tomatoes are a delicious and convenient ingredient in tomato sauces, pasta sauces, stews, salsas, and even soups. And for the highest quality canned tomatoes you need to select the right tomato varieties to grow. The best tomatoes for canning are plum types, which have a dense texture, fewer seeds, and a rich flavor. In this article I’ll share my go-to tomato varieties for canning and offer tips on maximizing the harvest. 

What is a canning tomato?

Canning is a way of preserving tomatoes so you can enjoy them year-round. You can buy canning type tomatoes at the supermarket, farmers market, or grow them yourself. Once you’ve preserved this pantry staple in canning jars, they can be added to recipes whole, chopped, or reduced down into a thick, delicious sauce.

There are different types of tomatoes you can plant in your garden and your choice depends on how you intend to use the fruits. For example, if you want mouthwatering tomato sandwiches, you should grow slicers like beefsteak varieties. For salads, cherry tomatoes are a sweet treat. But for canning and sauce making, plum tomatoes are second to none. 

Also called paste or Roma tomatoes, plum tomatoes are the best tomatoes for canning because of their meaty flesh, low moisture, small seed cavities, and pleasing sweet-acid flavor balance. In fact when you slice a canning tomato you might be surprised how dry they are on the inside. Don’t panic! That’s perfect for canning and making sauces. As for shape and color, most plum tomatoes have red oval shaped fruits, but some are rounded or heart shaped, and there are even varieties with striped or yellow skin. 

Why it’s important to know the best tomatoes for canning

As noted above, there are advantages to using plum tomatoes for canning. Let’s look a little closer at the benefits:

• Dense texture – The firm flesh and thick walls of these tomatoes helps them retain their shape during the canning process.
• Low moisture content – Because the fruits of plum tomatoes have less water, they cook into a thick sauce faster than slicing or cherry tomatoes. 
• Thick skins – This may sound like a disadvantage of using paste tomatoes, but when blanched in hot water, the skins peel off easily.
• Small seed cavity – Smaller seed cavities means fewer seeds which can lend a bitter flavor to sauces and other dishes. 
• Rich taste – The flavor of canning tomatoes varies from more sweet to a balance of sweet and acid to more acidic. Read variety descriptions carefully and select those that appeal to your palate. 

How many canning tomato plants do I need?

The number of plants you should grow depends on how much canning you intend to do. I typically process my canning tomatoes into tomato sauce, freezing the sauce for winter meals. I plant 6 to 8 canning tomato plants which gives me enough fruits to make 3 to 4 batches of sauce. If you’re a serious canner and want to make big batches of sauce for canning whole, stewed tomatoes, pasta sauce, salsa, ketchup, tomato paste, tomato juice, and other tomato products, you’ll want to grow a larger number of tomato plants.

The 10 best tomatoes for canning

Below you’ll find the best tomatoes for canning, as well as processing into sauces and paste. These are available through seed catalogs as well as from nurseries and greenhouses in spring. I like to grow my own seedlings so that I can source the varieties I want. Plus, it allows me to produce strong stocky seedlings exactly when I need them. Options include heirloom tomatoes, open-pollinated varieties, and hybrids.

Take note of whether your selected varieties are determinate or indeterminate. Determinate, or bush, tomatoes grow to a certain height, usually 2 to 3 feet, and then produce their fruits all at once. This is convenient when you want to can tomatoes. Indeterminate varieties grow much taller – up to 7 feet – and mature their fruits over a longer period of time. If you wish to make repeated small batches, these tall varieties are convenient.

The best tomatoes for canning – Determinate varieties

• Sunrise Sauce – I’ve been growing this plump orange canning tomato for a few years now and it’s become one of my favorites for canning. Not only does the golden color make for a bright tomato sauce, the fruits are exceptionally sweet. Grow it in gardens, raised beds, or pots for plenty of 4 to 6 ounce tomatoes. 
• Saucy Lady – More rounded than oblong, the firm red fruits of Saucy Lady are also more sweet than acid. That makes for delicious canned tomatoes and richly flavored sauces. 
• Roma VF – Roma VF is an open-pollinated canning tomato with compact plants and blocky fruits. This is a great variety to grow if you struggle with tomato diseases as the plants are resistant to verticillium wilt and fusarium wilt. Expect a high yield of medium-sized tomatoes. 
• Plum Regal – As the name suggests, Plum Regal yields plum-shaped fruits that weigh about 4 ounces each. They have a nice acid-sweet flavor profile. The plants are also very disease resistant to help ensure a good harvest. 

The best tomatoes for canning – Indeterminate varieties

• San Marzano 2 – When it comes to canning tomatoes, it’s hard to top the flavor and quality of San Marzano 2. This super popular variety originates from Parma, Italy where it was developed in the 1950’s. The bright red fruits grow in large bunches and are produced over months. The tomatoes measure 4 to 5 inches in length and have a dense texture, small seed cavities, and an incredible sweet-acid flavor. 
• Amish Paste – Amish Paste is a classic canning tomato that makes for a delicious sauce, paste, or ketchup. It’s reliable and bears a heavy crop of big, dense fruits until autumn frost kills back the plant. 
• Polish Linguisa – This heirloom canning tomato variety produces sizeable fruits beloved for their sweet flavor. Each Polish Linguisa tomato is around 10 ounces with bright red skin and pointed ends. 
• Speckled Roman – The fruits of this stunning tomato have beautiful red and orange striped skin and bright red flesh. Each sausage-shaped fruit grows 3 to 5 inches long and has a beefy texture with very few seeds. The standout flavor makes this a very high quality canned tomato.
• Big Mama – The hefty fruits of Big Mama are truly massive, growing 5 inches long and 3 inches across! They’re also easy to core and the skins slip easily from the flesh after a quick blanching. Expect great flavor and dense interiors. 
• Anna Russian – Anna Russian is an early maturing heritage canning tomato with pinkish-red, almost heart-shaped fruits. They’re juicier than other paste varieties, but the flavorful tomatoes make the extra cooking time so worthwhile.  

Other excellent options include Golden Fresh Salsa, Oxheart, Roman Candle, Saucy, and Napoli Plum. 

Can you use other types of tomatoes for canning? 

If you wish to use another type of tomato, like beefsteak tomatoes, for canning, you certain can. Just remember that you’ll need to cook sauces and pastes longer due to the higher moisture content. They’ll also have more seeds than paste type tomatoes. Therefore I would run them through a tomato mill to remove the bitter-tasting seeds. 

Growing tips for canning tomatoes

Tomatoes are generally easy to grow, as long as they’re given the right growing conditions and some ongoing care. Here are three tips to help you grow your best tomatoes ever. 

1. Location – For a bumper crop of canning tomatoes plant in a site with full sun (at least 6 hours) and fertile, well-draining soil. Amend the bed with compost or rotted manure before transplanting the seedlings in spring. I also add an organic granular tomato fertilizer to promote vigorous plants and lots of delicious fruits. 
2. Stake – Supporting plants with stakes, cages, and other types of structures keeps them off the ground and exposes the leaves to maximum sunlight. It also helps the foliage dry off quicker after a rain and promotes good air circulation to reduce the risk of disease issues. 
3. Watering – Water tomato plants deeply by directing water to the base of the plant using a long handled watering wand. Try to keep the soil lightly damp to prevent blossom end rot and water stress. Mulch the soil with straw or shredded leaves to hold moisture. 

For more information on growing tomatoes, be sure to check out these detailed articles:

• A step-by-step guide to growing plum tomatoes
• The best tomatoes for containers
• The best small tomato plants to grow
• Tomato growing secrets for the BIGGEST harvest