14 Canned Tomatoes Recipes Featuring Our Essential Year-Round Pantry Staple

It's hard to imagine life in the kitchen without this vital ingredient.

By
John Becker
John Becker
John Becker
Editor
John Becker is an editor with over a decade of experience researching and writing about food. He revised and updated the latest edition of The Joy of Cooking.
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Updated June 17, 2024
Pasta al tonno served inside a dish

Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

Canned tomatoes find their way into some of our favorite recipes. From classic Italian red sauces to creamy, comforting soups and spicy curries, we reach for 28-ounce cans of whole peeled tomatoes throughout the year. Below, we've compiled some of our best recipes that use this essential pantry ingredient.

Here, we stuck with recipes that call for whole canned tomatoes (though some have a surprising amount of tomato paste too). Of course, there are many canned (and jarred) tomato products. For an overview of what's available and their best uses, see Kenji's primer on canned tomato types, as well as Yasmine's explainer on passata.

  • Quick and Easy Italian-American Red Sauce

    1:17

    How to Make Quick and Easy Italian-American Red Sauce

    From simmering meatballs and smothering chicken parmesan to dressing ziti and dunking calamari, this red sauce is endlessly versatile. Simmered with plenty of garlic, dried oregano, red pepper flakes, and basil, this foundational Italian-American sauce is simple to make, coming together in about 40 minutes. If you have time to tend a lazily bubbling pot, try Kenji's rich and complex slow-simmered red sauce too.

  • Chinese Scrambled Eggs With Tomato

    Two plated dishes of tomato and egg with rice on a grey, textured background

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    In this recipe from Jenny Dorsey, canned tomatoes are cooked with scallion and ginger and seasoned with a little soy sauce and Shaoxing wine in this easy recipe. Scrambled egg and white pepper are then folded in, and the mixture is topped with sliced scallion greens. Served with white rice, this classic Chinese homestyle dish is satisfying as a lunch or light dinner, but we think it's one of the best breakfasts around.

  • Kafta bi Bandora (Palestinian Ground Meat Patties in Tomato Sauce)

    Overhead view of kafta in baking dish next to a bowl of rice.

    Serious Eats / Mai Kakish

    Kafta, a mixture of minced meat and spices, is an ancient preparation found across the Middle East, South Asia, and parts of Europe. Reem Kassis's recipe calls for fashioning the mixture into patties and roasting them until nicely browned, along with thick rounds of potato. The roasted patties and potatoes are then shingled on a baking dish with green bell pepper rings, and covered with a simple mixture of crushed tomato, garlic, and olive oil. The dish is returned to the oven and braised until bubbling and browned.

  • Oven-Roasted Tomato Bruschetta

    Closeup of Oven-Roasted Tomato Bruschetta, arranged on a silver platter.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    The key to out-of-season bruschetta: Drain a can of whole peeled tomatoes, lay them out on a sheet pan, season them with salt, drizzle some olive oil over them, and slow-roast them in a moderate oven for an hour. The result: tomatoes with a concentrated flavor and meaty texture. Once they're chopped, you'll forget they came from a can.

    Continue to 5 of 14 below

  • Pasta al Tonno (Pasta With Tomatoes and Tuna)

    Pasta al tonno served inside a dish

    Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

    This simple weeknight pasta is a pantry home run. Dried pasta, olive oil, a can of tuna, and a can of whole peeled tomatoes gets you most of the way to dinner. A few cloves of garlic and a bunch of parsley are the only fresh ingredients you need to wrestle up. For another pantry pasta classic, see Kenji's recipe for spaghetti puttanesca.

  • Cioppino (San Francisco Seafood Stew)

    A serving of cioppino in a bowl, overflowing with plump shrimp, mussels, clams, calamari, fish, and more. There's a piece of deeply toasted sourdough on the side, and a small bowl holding a roasted red pepper condiment.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Good cioppino starts with a rich broth and ends with perfectly cooked fish. Daniel starts by sweating onion, fennel, and garlic, then adds a whole can of tomatoes, plus a few quarts of clam juice–enhanced seafood stock. Packed with halibut, two types of crustaceans, two varieties of bivalves, and one member of the cephalopod family, this stew is a seafood show-stopper! For a tomatoey seafood stew that's lighter on prep (and your wallet), check out Kevin Vaughn's Argentine fish stew.

  • Andhra-Style Tomato Curry

    Overhead view of tomato curry recipe

    Serious Eats / Kanika and Jatin Sharma

    This recipe uses both fresh and canned tomatoes. Removing the fresh tomato chunks after a briefly frying them preserves their texture. Canned tomatoes are simmered with the rest of the curry ingredients, which deepens and concentrates their flavor.

  • 15-Minute Creamy Tomato Soup

    A bowl of creamy vegan tomato soup on a stone background with a spoon to the right of the bowl. The surface of the soup is drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with chopped herbs.

    Serious Eats / Eric Kleinberg

    This pantry-friendly vegan recipe from Kenji uses two large cans of peeled whole tomatoes and little else: some garlic, onion, pepper flakes, fresh herbs for garnishing, and two slices of bread, which are blended into the soup along with some olive oil for a nice, creamy texture. If you are not opposed to dairy products and have some time to spare, Stella's recipe for tomato soup gets a boost in flavor from browned butter, carrot purée, and a splash of cream.

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  • Albóndigas de Ricota (Argentine Ricotta Balls)

    Overhead view of albondigas de ricotta on a blue background

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Breaded and fried ricotta balls, seasoned with Pecorino Romano and parsley, are smothered in a thick, garlicky red sauce. Capers and black olives add a sharp, briny element to the sauce, which contains two big cans of peeled whole tomatoes.

  • Shakshuka (North African–Style Poached Eggs in Spicy Tomato Sauce)

    Overhead of shakshuka in a pan and bowl

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    This classic North African dish is the perfect weekend breakfast. A thick tomato sauce, flavored with garlic, cumin, and charred red pepper and onions, is topped with eggs and finished on low heat so that the eggs are gently cooked. Top with crumbled feta and a sprinkle of cilantro or parsley and serve with warmed flatbread for dipping into the runny yolks.

  • Italian-American Beef Braciole

    Overhead view of beef braciole

    Serious Eats / Lorena Masso

    This homestyle classic features thin slices of beef topped with a savory bread crumb filling and prosciutto. The slices are then rolled up and braised in a tomato sauce.

  • Butter Chicken

    Overhead view of butter chicken, served in a turquoise bowl alongside basmati rice.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    The makhani sauce for this chicken is simmered on the stovetop and takes on a rich tomato flavor while broiled marinated chicken adds char to the final dish. The tomato sauce is flavored with onion, ginger, garlic, chiles, cardamom, and garam masala and enriched with cashews and cream. If the lengthy simmering time seems like a big ask, try Sho's pressure cooker version of this recipe.

    Continue to 13 of 14 below

  • Penne alla Vodka

    A bowl of penne a la vodka, sprinkled with parmesan.

    Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer

    Daniel's superlative take on this Italian-American restaurant classic balances the richness of heavy cream with an entire can of tomato paste. Adding vodka when the pasta and sauce are nearly finished preserves its heat and flavor-enhancing properties without overpowering the dish.

  • Eggs in Purgatory

    Overhead view of eggs in purgatory

    Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

    Leah's eggs in purgatory are great for breakfast, brunch, or dinner and take less than 30 minutes to prep. Canned tomatoes are simmered with aromatics, red pepper flakes, and fragrant tomatoes, then eggs are eased into the mixture and poached until the whites are set and the yolks are still runny. Serve with Italian bread for dipping into the yolks and soaking up every last bit of sauce.

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