I haven’t tried that many brands, to compare. To me it tastes like puréed canned tomatoes without seeds.
I’ve used the passata to make Greek-style sauces with cinnamon for meatballs, pasta, moussaka. I like that the passata comes in a glass jar, which can be kept in the fridge for a week or so, and used in a few dishes. I end up repackaging unused canned tomatoes since I don’t store open cans in the fridge.
I don’t make Italian red sauces from scratch, so I can’t comment on using passata for that. I like the higher quality red sauces enough not to make my own.
I’ve run into issues using canned Mutti pulp, which is too watery compared to tomato sauce . The pulp is not thick enough for pizza sauce.
I have tried several brands of jarred passata over time, but none recently enough to offer a reliable impression. The boxed Pomi (Strained Tomatoes) product is reliably thick, which is useful to me because I can always thin it out.
Since my wife came back from her trip to Italy I’ve been using only ‘polpa’’, lately the Mutti brand). I’m not familiar with passata, but it would seem that polpa has a bit more body, though it’s finer than the ‘crushed’ tomatoes I’ve used in the past. Polpa plus dried seasoning (she brought a bunch home) and fresh basil + a bit of EVOO is all I’m ‘allowed’ to use now. For pasta dishes I start with plain polpa and the rest goes in at the end. Those were strict instructions from the woman in the shop in Siena where she bought what has changed our lives.
We were lucky to live near an Italian market in Berlin last summer where the Mutti brand was all over, and the clientele predominantly ex-pats. There were also big ole bouquets of dried oregano sprigs hanging from the ceiling. It made for a fantastic seafood marinara.
It’s a mix of seasonings. There’s oregano as well as garlic, basil, pepper, parsley, salt. One of the mixes also has onion and a few other things I can’t identify. Unfortunately I tossed the first label a while ago.
My wife said the woman in the shop said not to cook the seasonings in the sauce, but to add them at the end the way you would fresh herbs. She said that’s important to preserve the pure tomato flavor. I thought they’d be kindof crunchy done that way, but they’re not. It was that pure flavor that was such a revelation for my wife. We’d settled on Rao’s marinara as our sauce of choice until her trip.
Ah, understood. One of those little seasoning packets.
And people say Italians make everything from scratch – they like their store-bought sugo, too
The Aldi Botticelli sauce was sold out when I went back a couple of days ago. It was really quite good, but not terribly cheap at $4.48 compared to their special select marinara or Priano sauces, which are also nice. Rao’s is $6.88 at Aldi.
I’ve become pretty minimalist re marinara/pasta sauce, spinning off Marcella’s favorite. A can of good tomatoes, half an onion (either chopped or left intact so it can be removed before serving). Simmer, smooshing the tomatoes to a puree with wooden paddle. When smooth, whisk in a healthy chunk of butter. That’s all. Everyone swoons, including a visiting Italian woman.
I suppose it measured maybe 1.5 cups, so more than a little packet. The unopened one she brought back is maybe half a cup. All of the ingredients are dried.
Me too… and while I used to use Cento tomatoes to do this from scratch, since discovering the Mezetta marinara I usually just doctor it.
A few years ago Pati Jinich taught me how to seriously improve my roasted/boiled ingredient salsas by dumping the blended ingredients into a pot with a puddle of hot oil, stirring the sizzling mixture for just a couple of minutes. I do the same now in EVOO with some fresh garlic/herbs, sometimes pepper flakes, and a minute or two later my jar of marinara. The results have been close to (or as good as) what I made from scratch… taking just minutes.
Other way around, per their own descriptions (as polpa contains the juice and seeds, passata has those strained out).
Mutti makes passata as well, so you can do your own comparison. (Passata tends to run a bit more expensive than crushed tomatoes in general at regular price in my experience).
Maybe sacrilege, but I tend to stick in an immersion blender to purée the tomatoes and onions halfway through, let it cook down some more, then add butter at the end. For an occasional variation, some garlic. But it’s made me intolerant of herbs in my tomato sauce!
I see that now when looking at the Mutti site and Googling definitions. I’ve not seen canned passata yet and have to say that the polpa I’ve used (both Mutti and another brand they sell at a Bloomingdales) were not what I’d call watery at all. I’m supposed to go to a local Italian market soon and I’ll be sure to look for passata.
I’d be surprised if you couldn’t find passata at a generic supermarket near you – have you tried
checking via instamart in your zip code? (Also Amazon, if you’re using it enough to buy several containers at a time.)
It’s not hard to find here on the east coast (once you’re looking for it — i wouldn’t have seen it if it were right in front of my face before then, tbh)
Thanks for the suggestions. I’m perfectly happy using polpa and want to go to the Italian market for other things as well. I didn’t notice passata on the shelves near the polpa but probably wasn’t looking for it since polpa is what my wife brought home from Italy. I’ll check there too though.
