Canned tomatoes have been and will always be one of your most versatile pantry staples; the perfect acidic base for pasta sauces, soups, dips, casseroles, and more. While there’s nothing quite like the sweet, tangy kick of a fresh garden tomato, the year-round availability, convenience, and stable shelf life of canned options are hard to beat. However, not all canned brands are made equal, which means the one you buy could impact the taste, texture, and overall success of your dishes.

We compared 16 popular canned tomato brands to figure out which one is worthy of your time, money, and — most importantly — taste buds. Not only did we look at flavor, but we also evaluated price, production, and provenance. After closely researching and tasting all of the options we settled on one, clear winner: Cento, a brand of canned tomato sold in every U.S. state. As each of its cans proudly states, this is a “product of Italy,” where the Mediterranean climate and agricultural conditions produce extremely high-quality tomatoes. A 28-ounce can of Cento whole peeled plum tomatoes could run you between $4 – $7, depending on the location. That’s on the medium to higher end of what such a product would typically cost. But it’s worth every penny, in our opinion.

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What Makes Cento Canned Tomatoes Worth The Squeeze

Cento Fine Foods is an American importer of Italian products, launched in the 1950s by Alfred Ciccotelli Sr., and prides itself on offering U.S.-based shoppers premium quality ingredients. Cento uses San Marzano tomatoes, which are largely considered to be the must-have tomato variety for sauces. They are named after the San Marzano region of Italy, where volcanic soils produce sweet and silky tomatoes with fewer seeds. While they can be grown outside of Italy, the Italian ones have earned the prestigious Protected Designation of Origin (also stylized as DOP or PDO) certification. Cento goes a different route by having its Italian-grown tomatoes certified through an unrelated E.U.-approved agency known as Agi-Cert.

When it comes to the best use of Cento’s canned tomatoes, the recipes truly feel endless. One dish that we highly recommend trying out is our Creamy Seafood-Stuffed Shells recipe. Not only is it a relatively simple dish that takes under an hour to make, but you can make it ahead of time and bake before it’s time to serve. It creates the perfect flavor balance between a creamy shrimp and lobster filling, stuffed into pasta shells slathered in tangy tomato sauce. If you’re craving a taste of Cento canned tomatoes without cooking up a whole dish, swap out tomato juice for canned tomatoes in your next bloody mary for a thicker texture with more complex flavors.

Read the original article on Tasting Table.