Paste Tomatoes

Updated June 2026

The best varieties for sauce, passata and bottling, and how to grow a big batch in New Zealand

If you want a pantry stocked with your own passata and bottled sauce, you grow paste tomatoes. These are the meaty, low-moisture types bred for the kitchen rather than the salad bowl, and they turn a summer glut into jars of red gold with far less effort than a watery salad tomato ever could.

This guide covers what makes a paste tomato different, the best varieties to grow, and how to plan a crop big enough for a proper bottling day. Use the variety picker below to match a paste tomato to what matters most to you.

Paste Tomato Variety Picker

There is no single best paste tomato, only the best one for how you want to grow and cook. Tell the picker what matters most and it will recommend a variety to start with.

Want flavour above all? San Marzano is the famous long Italian indeterminate sauce tomato, and Speckled Roman is a meaty red-and-gold striped heirloom with a wonderful rich flavour. Both reward a long warm season.

Why Grow Paste Types

Salad tomatoes are juicy and full of seeds, which is lovely raw but a problem in the pot, where all that water has to boil away before the sauce thickens. Paste tomatoes solve that.

• Thick, meaty flesh. Dense walls and little hollow space mean more sauce per fruit.
• Low moisture. Less water to cook off, so the sauce thickens faster and tastes more concentrated.
• Few seeds. Less to strain out, and a smoother result.
• They cook down well. Paste types hold their flavour through long, slow cooking, which is exactly what sauce and passata need.

Determinate or Indeterminate

Paste tomatoes come in both habits, and the difference matters a lot when you are planning a bottling day.

• Determinate (bush) types. Roma and Roma VF grow to a set size and ripen one concentrated flush of fruit. That is perfect if you want to pick a big load all at once for a single sauce-making session. They need little pruning and stay compact.
• Indeterminate (vine) types. San Marzano, Amish Paste and Speckled Roman keep growing and fruiting in waves over a long season. You harvest steadily rather than all at once, so freeze or bottle in batches. They need staking and regular removal of side shoots.

Growing for a Big Batch

To stock the pantry, you need volume. As a rough guide, four to six plants give a small household a good run of fresh sauce and a batch or two to bottle, while eight to twelve plants set you up for serious bottling.

• Pick your habit to suit your plan. Grow determinate Roma if you want one big harvest for a single cook-up. Grow indeterminate types if you would rather freeze fruit in waves and cook when you have enough.
• Full sun and rich soil. Give them at least 6 to 8 hours of sun and dig in plenty of compost and aged manure before planting.
• Space for airflow. Set plants about 50 to 60 cm apart so they dry quickly after rain, which keeps fungal disease down.

For the kitchen side of the job, see our passata and bottling guide.

Watering and Feeding

Even, consistent watering is the most important thing with paste tomatoes, which are quite prone to blossom end rot. Water deeply at the base, keep the soil evenly moist, and mulch thickly with straw or pea straw to buffer the moisture.

Feed with compost and aged manure at planting, then switch to a potassium-rich tomato fertiliser once the first flowers appear, feeding every one to two weeks through fruiting. Ease off nitrogen once flowering starts, or you will get a leafy green bush and few tomatoes.

Common Problems

Blossom end rot

A dark, sunken patch on the base of the fruit, caused by a calcium shortage in the developing tomato that is almost always triggered by uneven watering rather than a lack of calcium in the soil. Paste types are especially prone to it. Water deeply and regularly, mulch to hold steady moisture, and it usually clears up on later fruit.

Fruit cracking

Splits in the skin after rain or a heavy soak following a dry spell, when the fruit swells faster than the skin can stretch. Water evenly, mulch well, and pick fruit promptly once it starts to colour, especially before forecast rain.

When to Plant in New Zealand

Paste tomatoes are frost-tender, so plant them out only after the last frost in spring, once the soil and nights have warmed, roughly September to December depending on your region. The warm north has a long window that suits indeterminate types right through the season. In the cold south the season is short, so lean on early determinate types like Roma and start seed indoors 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost for a head start.

Best Paste Tomato Varieties

Every variety below is a real one grown in New Zealand gardens. Days are a rough guide from transplanting to first ripe fruit.

Plan Your Varieties in the App

This guide helps you choose a paste tomato. The Planting Season app helps you grow it. When you add a tomato to your garden you can choose your variety from the in-app dropdown, and the app tracks it from sowing through to harvest with reminders tuned to your New Zealand region. Grow a determinate Roma for one big cook-up and a cherry tomato for snacking, all on the one plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

See also: How to Grow Tomatoes and Tomato in the Plant Library