Jarred Tomato Paste, Ranked Worst To Best
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Some will argue that tomatoes make some of the best toppings out there. Whether you're slicing a whole tomato to put on a sandwich, cutting up baby tomatoes to put in a salad, or topping a pasta dish with tomato sauce, there are many ways to get your fill of tomatoes. Tomato paste is another method of adding the fresh, juicy flavor of tomato to a meal in a smoother, more sauce-like form. Tomato paste is essentially tomatoes that have been cooked down until they're in paste form. They have had all of the skin and seeds removed before being condensed.
Tomato paste can often be found in chili, ketchup, and many other homemade recipes that you might come across on cooking recipe websites. You might be used to seeing it at grocery stores in a squeezable tube or can, but you also might find tomato paste in a jar as well. There's no denying that any food or condiment that comes in a glass jar, like fruit jams or pickles, feels a lot fancier than squeezing it out of a tube or scooping it out of a metal can. Tomato paste is no exception to this, and buying a jar of it can make you feel almost like a professional cook. This list will consist of 9 different jarred tomato pastes and rank them from worst to best.
Mantova Sundried Tomato Paste
Most tomato pastes on this list don't falter much in terms of taste, and our nitpicks are more in regards to mold, price, and ease of locating. This first tomato paste, however, didn't have the best texture, and we couldn't even begin to talk about the taste. Mantova's Sundried Tomato Paste may call itself a tomato "paste," but in terms of texture, was less like a smooth, spreadable tomato product you might find in a burrito or tomato soup. It was more like adding a jar full of sand to your dish, essentially ruining it.
The paste comes in a round, 6.5-ounce jar, and is filled with a bright, orange-red tomato-based product that was a lot more watery than a good paste, but also a lot more like sand. One reviewer on Amazon wrote, "This product has got to be the most inedible tomato spread out there, not so much because of its flavor (which, in truth, tastes more like tomato stems than fruit) but because of its unbelievably sandy (gritty) texture." Taste-wise, Mantova's paste didn't taste a whole lot like a flavorful tomato sauce, and when pairing that with the horrible texture, this is the jarred tomato product that we'd never suggest you have. If you're trying to make a solid beer chili with tomato paste, you might want to pass on this one.
Sera's Double Concentrate Tomato Paste
The next tomato paste on this list is Sera's Double Concentrate Tomato Paste. This product is branded as containing 24.7 ounces of 100% natural tomato paste with no preservatives. Something one might note is that while it can be found for a much cheaper price in stores, online, a single jar of this tomato paste goes for around $10 per jar, and that's pretty expensive for a small jar of tomato paste. Furthermore, the paste, if not refrigerated, molds pretty easily. If you see this paste on store shelves, you'll have to be careful about finding a jar that still has safe-to-eat tomato paste inside.
The lucky few who have managed to find jars of this product that aren't black and molding have claimed the product to be "flavorful, with no artificial coloring" (per Amazon). However, you could probably find another great-tasting tomato paste that doesn't mold as quickly before being refrigerated. When comparing the process of using this tomato paste as opposed to just buying a can, trying to use Sera's paste is ultimately a much greater hassle. This is not an experience we recommend you try and would suggest looking for another brand, with less of a chance of containing mold.
Misso Tomato Paste
Following any diet can be difficult. While the payoff is, in most cases, beneficial to one's health, it can be pretty challenging to locate foods and products that fall under your diet. Whether you follow a diet to get fit or because you feel as though it will lead to a general improvement in your lifestyle, one of the many diets that has been growing in popularity is the keto diet. This aims to limit carbs and sugars to lose weight (per Harvard Medical School), and in a world full of delicious pasta, pizzas, and sandwiches, it's not easy to follow this restrictive diet, and much less so to find foods that you can still eat. While a keto-friendly tomato paste would certainly be useful for Keto-friendly pizzas and pasta, this next tomato sauce wouldn't be the first thing we'd add to a keto meal.
Misso's Tomato Paste is produced in Turkey and is branded as both all-natural and keto-friendly. The tomato paste itself doesn't taste awful, if a bit less sweet and flavorful, as to fit the diet. A jar on Amazon goes for $10, which is a bit expensive for a jar of tomato paste, though if you really want something that will fall under the keto diet, you might think this paste is worth the price. In the grand scheme of things, however, this wouldn't be our go-to tomato product if we've run out of tomato sauce.
Zarrin Tomato Paste
If you look at the labeling on most jars of food, including tomato paste, you'll find a warning telling you to make sure to refrigerate the product after opening the jar. This prevents the food from going bad after being exposed to possible bacteria in the air. According to Daily Delish, a can of tomato paste that has not been opened can last for up to 24 months. When you get tomato paste from the stores, you don't typically expect to see some dark, foreboding mold forming on the rim of the can or jar. Zarrin Tomato Paste may be solid in terms of flavor, but was another paste that had some mold problems.
The tomato paste is produced in Turkey and typically comes out as a spreadable, decently flavored paste. One review on Amazon claims that the product is of "high quality" and has "good flavor." However, several other review writers on the site found that once they opened the jar, they found mold and foul-smelling paste inside, not fit for eating. This paste will be a hit or miss, depending on whether you manage to find a jar that hasn't gone bad.
Dr. Mercola Solspring Biodynamic Organic Tomato Paste
When thinking of healthy foods, such as a protein shake or fruit bowl, tomatoes — unless put in a salad or smoothie — aren't typically the first food that comes to mind when you want a light, healthy meal. Though we don't suggest going on a diet solely of ketchup-covered hot dogs or hamburgers, when used right, tomatoes are a vitamin-filled fruit that's pretty healthy to include in your diet. Many of those health benefits carry over or become more obvious once put into paste form (per LiveStrong). What's better is if the fruit is produced in a healthy, environmentally friendly manner, such as this next tomato paste.
Dr. Mercola Solspring Biodynamic Organic Tomato Paste is a tomato product that is made utilizing holistic regenerative farming practices with a focus on sustainability. The tomato paste was a fairly good product, if not a little more watery than your average paste, but compared to the gritty and moldy pastes that come before this, we'll let that slide. Other than that, though, this climate-friendly tomato paste is flavorful and great for your next spaghetti or rigatoni dish.
Tukas Premium Turkish Tomato Paste
Tomato paste is typically a delicious, easy-to-use product that can be applied to tacos, pasta, burritos, as well as other dishes. While it's usually pretty light in calories, generally consisting of 5-15 calories per serving, it's also incredibly filling. When you aren't worried about the mold or improper packaging of this next jar of tomato paste, you'll find a surprisingly great-tasting product. Tukas Premium Turkish Tomato Paste is a much darker paste in terms of color, but as long as you don't find a rotten jar, this paste is a wonderful addition to the next recipe you encounter that calls for tomato paste.
If you're trying to buy this product online, it certainly isn't the cheapest. On the Grand Turkish Bazaar, the paste sells for around $7.20 USD, while on Amazon, it goes for about $15. If you're able to put price aside, as well as the possibility of encountering a moldy product, you'll find an incredibly rich paste with a velvety texture, simple and delicious to include on a serving of pasta skewers. If you see this product on store shelves (and hopefully at a cheaper price), then Tukas tomato paste will be a nice addition to your next Pasta Alla Norma.
Sadaf's Tomato Paste in a jar
If you're worried about consuming a lot of sugar or salt in a day, you don't have to be too nervous about most tomato pastes. Typically, one serving of the paste will only contain 1-2 grams of sugar, most of it being natural sugars, which are considerably healthier than added sugar (per Everyday Health). When you find a tomato paste that claims to have "no sugar added," you get the feeling that the brand is trying to grasp at any straws they can manage to hold on to. When a tomato paste brands itself as salt-free, kosher, and keto-friendly, however, it can really get your attention.
Sadaf's Tomato Paste Jar is made with completely natural tomatoes, and like most pastes, it only contains a couple of ingredients: tomato concentrate and salt. You heard us right: If you go on Amazon, you'll find the product claiming to be salt-free, but if you look on Sadaf's website, you'll notice that salt is the only other ingredient in the paste. It doesn't mention sugar though, so the brand is safe there. Putting this aside, though, the tomato product is actually quite delicious with incredible consistency and tomato flavor. If you're looking for a salt-free product, you might want to be careful with this one, but if you aren't worried about it, Sadaf's paste is a great product to try.
Tamek Tomato Paste
Lots of foods and condiments have a long list of various ingredients in them, many of which some people may have not heard of before or can't read as easily as "flour" or "spice." While in most cases, the ingredients either make a food taste really good or help preserve it, other times, there's no need to overcomplicate things with a bunch of added salts, sugars, and everything in between. This next product proves that you only really need one thing to make a good tomato paste. Tamek Tomato Paste is an incredibly flavorful, rich, and delicious paste that is made with a single, fresh ingredient: tomatoes.
The ingredient list may be short and simple, but this allows the tomato paste to really shine and have a pure, fresh tomato taste that reminds us of picking fresh tomatoes from a garden. The paste itself comes in a 24-ounce jar, is double concentrated, and contains no additives. Though this product may succumb to mold and expire faster, as it doesn't have any preservatives to slow down the process, it was one of the better pastes we tried. We highly recommend it to any tomato lovers looking for a good tomato paste to add to their recipes.
Bionaturae Tomato Paste
The best tomato paste on this list was none other than Bionaturae Organic Tomato Paste. This contains no added salt or sugars and is made with purely tomato concentrate. It is also USDA Certified Organic and is made fresh in Italy. You can purchase this product online on Amazon, and also commonly find it in Whole Foods stores. Like most products you would find at one of these stores, this tomato paste is a little more expensive than a paste you'll find at Giant or Walmart, though it was less expensive than other offerings and most certainly worth the price.
The Bionaturae tomato paste is zesty, rich, and full of an authentic tomato flavor that we craved from all of these pastes. Of all the jarred pastes, we could tell that there was a difference between this product and a can or tube of tomato paste, as it tasted far better, and a lot more fresh. Consumers on the Amazon website agree, with a reviewer writing, "As a small amount of this paste adds a lot of zesty flavor and taste without interfering with the style of food." If you're looking for the best of the best when it comes to tomato paste, Bionaturae is the paste to pick.