Making Tomato Soup? Here's When To Use Canned Tomatoes Instead Of Fresh Ones

When winter's in full force, and you're craving a creamy tomato soup, you might find yourself eyeing canned tomatoes in the pantry. Would you be committing some kind of heresy by using those to make the soup? Absolutely not. In fact, when the fresh fruit is out of season, you're honestly better off using canned tomatoes.

The quality of flavor in fresh out-of-season tomatoes is usually pretty low, plus the fruit has traveled a long way to reach your local grocery store. In contrast, tomatoes that are used for canning are preserved when they're the ripest, sometimes within hours of being picked. For the best homemade tomato soup, you want tomatoes that are full of flavor, something you'll easily find in canned tomatoes all year long.

There's also the convenience aspect, of course, as cans have a very long shelf life, and they're more budget-friendly. To be honest, they're generally a better pick for soups or sauces, even when fresh tomatoes are seasonally abundant. They're thicker, more concentrated, and far less watery than the fresh produce. Most of the nutrients in fresh fruit are preserved through the canning process, so you're really getting the best of both worlds. 

We're not trying to knock soup made from fresh tomatoes. When the fruit is in season, it can definitely contribute to a deliciously comforting meal. That said, you'll probably be adding other ingredients to it to boost the flavor. Roasted garlic, red peppers, and red lentils are all great additions. Each time you make the soup, the flavor might differ slightly, though, depending on the variety of tomatoes you've chosen and how ripe they were when picked. Canned tomatoes, for their part, yield a reliable recipe that's the same in every single season, thanks to their unbeatable consistency of flavor.

Now, there are dishes where fresh tomatoes are the better pick, and it's worth waiting until they're in season to make them. Mexican gazpacho soup, for example, benefits from the juicy tomatoes, matching their crispness perfectly to the other veggies. Pico de gallo is another case where ripe tomatoes are the backbone of the show and couldn't be substituted with any canned variety. For most other soups, sauces, and dips, however, the canned fruit will not only hold up just fine but will probably surpass the fresh kind altogether.