There's No Single 'Best Tomato' For Marinara – Here's What Really Matters

There really is no match for homemade marinara (though Rao's, Ina Garten's favorite store-bought sauce, comes close). It might seem daunting to make, but it's not the sole domain of skilled Italian nonnas; in fact, it's quite a simple process — and bonus, no sauce that comes from your kitchen could ever be recalled. However, if you decide to take up the journey toward simmering your own marinara, you might get stuck wondering which tomato is best to use. But according to Chef Renee Guilbault, CEO of Harry's Famous Sauce, you ought to "Forget the variety snobbery and focus on ripeness," because "a perfectly ripe regular tomato beats an underripe heirloom every time."

In our exclusive interview, she advised Food Republic that when seeking out ripeness, to look for tomatoes with a fresh, bright scent, and when it's pressed on the outside, it indents just a bit. If nothing at your grocery store smells or feels ripe, Guilbault isn't averse to using canned tomatoes. "Good canned tomatoes — picked at peak ripeness and processed immediately — often beat those sad, shipped-across-the-country fresh tomatoes that were picked green," she told us.

That said, use your best judgment when it comes to deciding which to cook with. If it's summer, and fresh, ripe tomatoes are abundant at farm stands, go with those. For the other seasons, "High-quality canned tomatoes are your friend," Guilbault said, adding that because the cooking process has already been started on them, they'll take less time to turn into marinara.

In addition to what to look for when choosing ripe tomatoes for marinara, Chef Renee Guilbault had some suggestions for what to avoid, as well. "Stop choosing tomatoes that look like they were designed by a marketing team," she admonished, telling us that when tomatoes look perfect, that's typically all they have going for them, and they lack in the flavor department. She also begged people to stop keeping their tomatoes in the refrigerator, because the cold, dry air does nothing good for the flavor (and it in fact actively harms how they taste).

Guilbault also had a few big no-nos if you're using canned tomatoes. "Don't skimp on quality if you want a flavorful sauce," she said, also cautioning people from just tossing them into the pot without tasting them first. According to our expert, who has tried many different types of canned tomatoes and noted all the different variations in flavor, if they don't taste delicious before you cook them, they won't taste good after, either. So you maybe should at least try the higher-quality, and oftentimes more expensive, cans when starting out making homemade marinara (the priciest brand did, after all, come in first place in Food Republic's ranking).