The Canned Tomatoes Giada De Laurentiis Uses Constantly
There aren't too many people outside of Italy who have cooked as many Italian dishes as Giada de Laurentiis, which means she's thought a lot about canned tomatoes. The cookbook author and host of shows like "Giada Entertains" is known for her fresh take on homestyle Italian cooking, and that means experimenting with everything from basic marinara to tomato tarts. And because chefs who know tomatoes know canned tomatoes are almost always superior to fresh ones, you are going to see them used over and over in her recipes. But she doesn't love just any canned tomatoes; De Laurentiis prefers canned cherry tomatoes to give her dishes a bright flavor.
De Laurentiis loves cherry tomatoes both for their flavor and how easy they are to cook with, saying in a Giadzy video on Instagram that a can of cherry tomatoes "makes very sweet, delicious tomato sauce. And you can do it really fast in a pan with a little bit of garlic and olive oil." Cherry tomatoes, also called pomodorini, are special because they are naturally much sweeter than other, more acidic tomatoes, which makes them great for fresher-tasting pasta dishes that cook quickly in a pan. De Laurentis has a few different brands she favors for canned cherry tomatoes: Corbari tomatoes from I Sapori Di Corbara, which she spoke of in a video shared by Giadzy on Facebook, and Mutti, a more common brand you can find in grocery stores, which she shared, via Giadzy, on YouTube.
Canned cherry tomatoes are sweet and versatile
Cherry tomatoes are sweeter and more concentrated than other tomatoes because of their small size. Larger breeds of tomato need to spread out the same nutrients over a bigger fruit, so they become less dense, and thus less flavorful. Tougher cherry tomatoes don't bruise as easily either, which means they are picked closer to being fully ripe than other types of tomato. Since canned tomatoes are packed very soon after harvest, that means canned cherry tomatoes are closer to the intense tomato taste of fresh than almost any other style. And as a last plus, cherry tomatoes are bred to have more pectin, which means thicker, more lustrous sauce when you cook them down.
If you want to use canned cherry tomatoes in your own cooking, De Laurentiis' advice is pretty simple: Just toss them over whatever sounds good. She recommends not just pasta, but chicken, fish, and even potatoes or rice – they are just that good. With pasta, cherry tomatoes really shine in simple dishes, like our pasta with burrata and charred tomatoes, or a quick dish with roasted tomatoes and bucatini. Anywhere you love tomatoes, cherry tomatoes will bring a sweeter, stronger flavor that makes it just a little more special.