Italian heirloom and San Marzano are the ones I most often see recommended here, as well as opalka, but many will tell you the best the sauce does not necessarily come from Romas. If you do a search you will surely bring up several threads about it. Most people use a variety of tomatoes, and many recommend heart varieties as being less juicy than regular tomatoes and with better flavor.

This post was edited by sue_ct on Fri, Jan 18, 13 at 22:36

I'd suggest reading the discussion currently running right by yours on the forum. I linked it below for your convenience.

Technically there is only 1 variety named Roma although it has several hybrid sub-types that include "roma" in their name. But there are literally 100's of paste/plum tomato varieties, both hybrid and open-pollinated, of which Roma is only one and not considered the best or most popular.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Roma tomatoes discussion

I don't consider Italian Heirloom a paste because it's wetter than the true pastes. I really like it as an all purpose tomato. It does make a good sauce but it also is good fresh eating/slicing and is also a good canner. But I would say that it's not the best sauce, slicer, and canner, but it does good at all of those things. Kind of an all around tomato. San Marzano for me was a heavy producer of oblonged shaped tomatoes that were dryer, skinned and processed well and were somewhat bland. I used them as components of sauce, where I mixed in several varieties.

I like San Marzano Redorta. I get them from Seeds from Italy.

I made 24 half gallon containers of Sauce this year! Yeah I'm nuts.

Crazyoldgoose in Md

Here is a link that might be useful: Seeds from Italy - san Marzano Redorta