Of all the wonderful fruits and vegetables that summer brings, tomatoes are always top of our wish lists. Some of those tomatoes come straight from the vine, ripe with the gentle scent of pepper and bursting with sweet flavour, but our cupboards stay well-stocked with tins of tomatoes too. If you’re making a salad, of course you’re going to want the freshest, ripest tomatoes you can find, but what about a pizza, or a pasta sauce? There’s no replacement for the richness and flavour of good tinned tomatoes.
Tinned tomatoes still have a bit of a reputation for being lesser in comparison to fresh, but often in the UK that simply isn’t the case. If you’re buying your fresh tomatoes from supermarkets, chances are they have been off the vine for many many days before they reach your basket. By comparison, good tinned tomatoes from well-known brands such as Cirio are often picked and tinned within twenty-four hours, so by the time they get to you, they still have almost all of their flavour.
Tinned tomatoes are essential in the winter, in part because good fresh tomatoes simply aren’t available, but also because they’re ideal for all your favourite soups, stews and braises. That said, we find that we go through just as many tins in the summer. Scroll down and you’ll see what we’ve been cooking – eight recipes that we can’t go without in the summer!
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8 delicious tinned tomato recipes for summer