If you cannot get San Marzano tomatoes

What the original actually contributes

A low-water, low-seed plum tomato with balanced sweetness and moderate acidity — good enough to be crushed and used raw, which is what the Neapolitan convention actually depends on. The uncooked-sauce method needs a tomato that does not need cooking to taste good or to lose water.

See the full sauce entry

Where availability is the problem

DOP San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino is grown on a small protected acreage and is expensive and inconsistently stocked. Far more tins carry the name than that acreage could supply; only tins with the consortium mark are the protected product.

Options

1. Any good whole peeled plum tomato, drained of its packing juice

   Close

   Keeps what defines the style. There is a difference, and it is minor.

   Available in: Everywhere

   How to use it

   Drain, crush by hand, salt lightly, and use raw. Draining is the step that matters most — it does more for the sauce than the brand does.

   What changes

   Slightly more variable sweetness and acidity between brands and batches. In a blind comparison on a finished pizza the difference from a genuine DOP tin is small, and much smaller than the difference draining makes.

   What it does not change

   The method, the application quantity, or the bake. The AVPN standard itself permits several specified tomato types, not San Marzano alone.

   Strongly supported
   • Modernist Pizza — The Cooking Lab
   • International Regulation for True Neapolitan Pizza (Disciplinare Internazionale) — Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN)

2. Passata or strained tomato

   Workable, with trade-offs

   The result is recognisably the style, but you lose something specific — named below.

   Available in: Everywhere

   How to use it

   Use less than you would crushed tomato, and salt to taste.

   What changes

   Smoother and more uniform, losing the varied texture of hand-crushed tomato that a Neapolitan pizza is partly judged on. Often noticeably thinner, which risks a wet centre.

   Generally accepted
   • Modernist Pizza — The Cooking Lab

3. Fresh tomatoes in season

   A meaningful adaptation

   A good pizza, honestly a different one. Not a failed attempt at the original, and not the original either.

   Available in: Seasonally, in warm climates

   How to use it

   Peel, deseed, drain well, and expect to salt more assertively. Only worth doing with genuinely ripe tomatoes.

   What changes

   Brighter and less concentrated, and highly dependent on the fruit. In southern Italy in August this is not a compromise at all; in a northern European supermarket in February it is much worse than a good tin.

   Generally accepted
   • Modernist Pizza — The Cooking Lab

4. Jarred pizza sauce with added herbs, sugar or garlic

   Not recommended

   Commonly suggested, and it does not work here. The reason is given rather than the advice simply withheld.

   How to use it

   Avoid for a Neapolitan-style pizza specifically.

   What changes

   Pre-seasoned sauces are built for a longer, cooler American-style bake and typically carry sugar, dried herbs and garlic that read as harsh in a 90-second bake. For an American-style pizza they are a perfectly reasonable shortcut.

   Generally accepted
   • Modernist Pizza — The Cooking Lab

Related

Evidence

• Modernist Pizza — The Cooking Lab
• International Regulation for True Neapolitan Pizza (Disciplinare Internazionale) — Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN)