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I never want to get used to bad tomatoes — not if I can help it. A bad tomato can have me getting way too existential; I’ll sit there and be wondering how? Why? And why even bother? By and large, a good tomato (canned on the shelf or plump in the produce aisle) can be hard to find.
Between my grandpa’s tomato crop that he processed and canned every summer to feed his eight kids, and all the times I’ve gotten emotional eating tomatoes in Italy, I don’t buy just any tomatoes in the summer. And I extend that same discernment to canned ones, too — especially after I went shopping with my new chef friend, Emma Schmall.
On our trip, Schmall reminded me that a well-curated grocery store can (and should!) do all the research for you. By that I mean the staff is doing the grunt work of only selling truly delicious items they’d buy themselves. One of those products — Bianco DiNapoli Organic Crushed Tomatoes — recently became my new favorite pantry staple.
Why I Always Have Bianco DiNapoli Crushed Tomatoes in My Pantry
Have you ever opened up a can of tomatoes, say, for chili or marinara sauce, and thought: Well, these are technically tomatoes? Maybe they are watery or just merely blend in with the spices and seasonings. That’s a far cry from what you’ll find in cans of Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes.
Target
I most often buy the crushed tomatoes, but the same is true of all its products: they’re intensely tomato-y and jammy, yet have the fruity acidity that makes them incredible right out of the can. (I’m also a big fan of the brand’s marinara sauce as well as its new hummus collaboration with Little Sesame.) I personally can’t help but hover over an open can (or hot pan) and steal bites of just the unseasoned canned tomatoes. In truth, I feel like any dish I make with them makes me look like an amazing cook.
The Best Way to Enjoy Bianco DiNapoli Crushed Tomatoes
The Bianco DiNapoli canned crushed tomatoes have major star power, so you don’t want them to get lost in whatever dish you’re making. They’d be killer in a shakshuka, and are particularly delightful in a dish by Hetty Lui McKinnon that I can’t stop making: her Fried Cheese & Chickpeas in Spicy Tomato Gravy. Just typing that out made my stomach growl, actually.
The curry-adjacent gravy itself is very simple and lets the tomatoes be more than just a vehicle for cheese, which is important, as you don’t want to overwhelm their natural fruitiness and pop of acidity. At one point, while I let the tomato-cheese-chickpea mixture simmer, I had to stop myself from ruining the dish because I kept taking swipes of the tomato sauce. And now that you know that, you’ll know better and grab two (or six) cans just in case.
Buy: Bianco DiNapoli Organic Crushed Tomatoes, $5.99 for 28 ounces at Target
What’s your favorite canned staple? Tell us about it in the comments.
Further Reading
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