I go through a lot of tinned tomatoes. The only ingredients more essential to my weekly cooking are probably salt, oil, garlic and eggs. But unlike all those other ingredients, and almost everything that comes into my kitchen, I’d never thought about which tinned tomatoes I should buy, or why I buy the brands I do. If I’m going to be honest with myself, I probably bought La Gina or Mutti because their overtly Italian branding most aligned with my middle-class aspirations.I suspect many of you are just like me. That’s why this taste test was so important to me. If I can identify the best and worst tinned tomatoes, I could improve the standard of weekly cooking Australia-wide, or at least make it cheaper. For a food writer, improving the national quality of spag bol is high stakes, so I was eager to find a clear winner.How we testedI assembled a team of six reviewers, and we tasted 26 cans of diced, chopped or pulped tomato. We tried them all blind, twice: straight but heated through, and cooked into a sauce. The sauce was a simple tomato base. All 26 were fastidiously prepared in the same pan with the same timings and ratio of ingredients: a tablespoon of olive oil, 4g garlic, a quarter-tablespoon of salt and eight oregano leaves.We blind tested 26 cans of diced, chopped or pulped tomato … Photograph: James Gourley/The Guardian… straight out of the can but heated through, and cooked into a sauce, made to the same recipe, and in the same pan. Photograph: James Gourley/The GuardianThe (first) resultsOf all the 41 taste tests I’ve conducted, this was easily the most difficult to judge. Every round I kept thinking, OK, this seems to be a perfectly fine middle-range product and, having not tried an exceptionally good or bad version yet, I’d struggled to assign it a score. The exceptional products never came. Some were generally more enjoyable than others, but the margins were tiny. Imagine having two bowls of warm tomato side by side: one is slightly more acidic, and the other has a subtle, earthy aftertaste. How do you score for that?And this is just talking about the tomatoes straight out of the can. Every single cooked version I tried, I liked. Every single one. Other reviewers had more radical opinions – giving 3/10s and 9/10s and describing various cans as bin juice and paw paw inspired (mostly influenced by what they were having straight out of the can). At the end of the taste test, I asked them to re-taste some of the samples. I told them to find their highest and lowest scorers but, this time, they tried only the cooked version. “Yeh, wow, these are both tasty,” one reviewer said with a sad look, as if they had just wasted two hours of their life. Two others still preferred their higher scorer but, almost reluctantly, admitted they’d be happy with the sample they’d previously given a scathing review.‘One reviewer, who has been to more taste tests than anyone bar me, wrote only: “It’s a tomato. I’d eat it.”’ Photograph: James Gourley/The Guardian‘The first results were hard to believe … I just wanted to ignore the evidence.’ Photograph: James Gourley/The GuardianWhy we tasted againThe first results were hard to believe – like being told you shouldn’t rinse your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, I just wanted to ignore the evidence and do what makes sense to me. So I did another test.I bought several varieties of Mutti – diced, whole, San Marzano and cherry tomatoes – to test how they compared to the chopped or diced variety we’d used in the first taste test. I also threw in a brand we’d scored poorly as another point of comparison. I cooked them the same way and gave them to five people to test. The results were unextraordinary. None of the seven samples was markedly superior, and none were terrible. The test only affirmed what I was already struggling to come to terms with: the brand of tinned tomatoes you buy has very little influence on a sauce.If you want to make a better spag bol, concentrate on seasoning and cook times. One reviewer, who has been to more taste tests than anyone bar me, summed this up perfectly. Referring to a sample that received only 5/10 (also one of the cheapest products on the market), she wrote only: “It’s a tomato. I’d eat it.”For that reason, I’ve excluded the usual “best overall” and “best value” categories from the taste test and have instead written notes – minus the scores – to help guide you through the options and some tinned tomato myths. If you’re curious about the scores, see the table below – but I think you should ignore them.‘In terms of flavour, I see no reason to pick whole tomatoes over chopped or vice versa.’ Photograph: James Gourley/The GuardianTinned tomatoes: the overall findingsThere are differences between the samples, mainly the level of acidity (many have citric acid added for preservation), the ripeness of the tomatoes and how they’re cut. But the margins of those differences are small, except in extreme cases, which I’ve covered below. Other factors, such as sweetness and aroma, are surprisingly consistent. You can make a judgment about the field though, and my instinct is, despite what almost every label says, these cans aren’t filled with nature’s finest. If we’re paying $2 a can, imagine what the canning factories pay for their tomatoes.Italian v Australian tomatoesRemano Australian Diced TomatoesEvery tin we tried houses Italian or Australian tomatoes. Overall, there was no meaningful difference in quality between the two, but there was a peculiar difference in flavour. The Australian tins, particularly Remano, SPC and Ardmona, were fruitier. That doesn’t mean sweeter. Imagine drinking some generic, vaguely tropical fruit juice that’s had all the sugar sapped out of it – kind of like that.Cheap v expensiveBlack & Gold Chopped TomatoesThere seems to be little relationship between price and flavour. Some of the cheaper brands contained some underripe chunks of tomato (you can tell by the orange or yellow colour) and a greater proportion of skins. Black & Gold and Coles Simply Chopped Tomatoes – both 95c per 400g tin – were particularly bad offenders. Others, like Coles Italian, are a bit thin, as if they’ve been watered down. But some mid-range brands like Leggo’s had similar issues.Chopped v whole tomatoesHarris Farm Australian Diced TomatoesTrying it straight from the tin, I thought the whole tomato samples were slightly richer, but when the samples were cooked, the difference was barely perceptible. In terms of flavour, I see no reason to pick whole tomatoes over chopped or vice versa. Texture is a different matter. How the tomatoes are chopped will influence how your sauce thickens. Some tins of chopped tomatoes also contain a firming agent, which helps tomato chunks retain their shape (Harris Farm’s home brand and Remano Australian both use calcium chloride). If you’re cooking a quick sauce, the chunks won’t break down as much as other tins.Tinned cherry tomatoesAfter tasting Mutti’s cherry tomato tin against the rest of their range, I found no significant difference in sweetness or intensity of flavour. The nutrition panel suggests the same – the products have very similar natural sugar levels, as do cherry tomato tins from other brands. It may be different if the tins were 100% cherries but, like pretty much every tinned tomato product, about 40% of the can is a generic tomato juice. The big difference is texture. Whole cherry tomatoes make a thicker sauce, which is extremely useful for any reduction, but there’s a compromise, the skins add a fibrous texture. If you want to make a luscious sauce quickly, this is a good option, you just have to pay 40c extra for it.San Marzano tomatoesAgrigenus Pomodoro San Marzano Dell’Agro Sarnese Nocerino DOPSan Marzano are the Birkin handbag of the vegetable world, a brand name that projects exclusivity, quality and exorbitance. I tested two tins containing the famous southern Italian tomato, Mutti and Agrigenus, both of which come with a DOP (protected designation of origin) label, assuring us that these are real San Marzanos grown in southern Italy. For that certification, you have to pay more than $4 a can, pretty much twice that of any other tin. At that price, these need to be special, and that is not what we found. None of the tasters voted a San Marzano tin the best. Agrigenus received generous scores and a lot of comments about complexity, but it was also described as earthy and woody, “like it’s been cooked with a toothpick in it”. Mutti’s version performed no better than the brand’s regular tinned tomatoes.Organic v non-organicMacro Organic Diced Italian TomatoesIn general, the organic brands were more distinct, but not in a particularly good or bad way. Do you want a touch more complexity if it also brings a little bitterness or a slight metallic flavour? That’s your choice. Honest to Goodness was probably the most unusual of them, Macro the least.Notable products: what I’ll buyVilla Rossi Diced Tomatoes, 400g, $1.99 (50c per 100g), available from select grocers.The equal highest scorer on the day (along with Macro), simply because it was slightly sweeter than its competitors. The nutrition panel (note nutrition panels aren’t specific to each batch, they’re usually an average of many batches) tells the same story. At 3.9g per 100g, it has the equal highest naturally occurring sugar. That’s enough for me to end my long-term relationship with Mutti. Here on in, I will be buying this, SPC or whatever is on special.SPC Diced Tomatoes, 400g, $1.70 (43c per 100g), available at major supermarketsThe fruitiest of all the oddly fruity Australian tomato brands. It’s very acidic too, which makes a complex, if slightly unusual sauce. I think it’s too bright for any seven-hour sauce with high-umami ambitions but I’m keen to use it for literally any other tomato-based stewed food.Notable products: the big brandsMutti Polpa Finely Chopped Tomatoes, 400g, $2.30 (58c per 100g), available from major supermarketsI’ve included this because I’ve seen how much brand loyalty there is for Mutti online (where did that even come from?). To the loyalists, and to me of the past, I’m sorry, it simply did not stand out at all. If anything, it’s a bit lacking in sweetness and acidity, making it a bit vegetal and legume-like, as if a few specks of cannellini bean have been left in the tin.Annalisa Italian Diced Tomatoes, 400g, $1.50 (38c per 100g), available at major supermarketsI wanted to include this as a warning, because it’s a very high-acid option. If I’m making a spag bol, I’m usually adding sugar to balance out the acidity of the tomatoes. I know other people who will add a pinch of bicarb to literally balance the pH level. This is going to make that process a little more difficult – you’ll need too much bicarb or sugar, which will change the flavour. If you’re making a curry or chilli con carne, it’s not going to matter, a bit more acidity might even be nice.Notable products: what I won’t buyCirio Polpa Diced Tomatoes, 400g, $2.30 (58c per 100g), available at select grocersUncooked, this has a very unusual, slightly bitter aftertaste – like it’s been mixed with some overfermented tomatoes or a few drops of olive brine, which is how it ended up with the lowest score of the day. But when you cook it, that mostly fades. If there’s any brand to avoid, it’s probably this, Leggo’s and the cheap home brands with too many skins mixed in.Leggo’s Australian Diced Tomatoes, 400g, $1.80 (45c per 100g), available at major supermarketsLike pretty much every can, it’s tasty as a cooked sauce but the texture means I’ll never buy it. It’s watery, and the tomato bits are weirdly fibrous. I’m not just talking about the skins, the tomato bits are also kind of chewy. Odd.Ardmona Diced Tomatoes, 400g, $1.80 (45c per 100g), available at major supermarketsThey say it’s diced but if you diced this loosely, you’d never get a job in a kitchen. The large chunks aren’t a deal breaker but they certainly make it harder to get a consistent sauce, particularly for quick cooks. Like the other Australian tomatoes, this is very fruity, specifically paw-paw-like, which must be among the worst fruit a tomato could aspire to be.Australian supermarket tinned tomato taste test