If you are restricting yourself to just paste types for making sauce then many will tell you you are missing out. Few of the paste types are known for high quality flavor so the sauce that results is mediocre.

The very best tomato sauce is often made from a variety of non-paste varieties (hearts, beefsteaks, etc.) that are well known for flavor and in that case the choices are almost unlimited.

And switching to determinate varieties vs. indeterminate types will solve the "few ripen at the same time" issue. The only other alternative is planting many more plants to increase same time production.

Consider Bulls Heart, Schilling Giant, Rostova, Kosovo and other heart varieties tho not all are hybrids.

But if you want to limit it to only paste types then the various San Marzano varieties are best IMO. Also Mama Leone and Margherita. Opalka is another that is often recommended.

Dave

Just to add one more option to digdirt's good strategy, an extremelly productive and flavorful OP that acts "semi-determinate" is Rio Grande, which is more popular in Europe and the rest of the Americas than in the USA.

I "heart" my heart tomatoes LOL. Sauce, soup, salad, sandwich, they truly do it all. If you aren't getting enough at any one time to do your sauce, can you not freeze what you pick early and when you pick more, use them both for the sauce?
Edie

I don't grow anything just for canning (Sauce, paste, whole). At the peak when we have abundant, I make some plain spaghetti sauce , with whatever there is.
After washing, removing skin, core, most of seeds, Cut them to pieces, heat in a pot.
Use a potato masher and press the heck of it.
Get the juice out (after brought to boil). Use the juice to drink, make soup with or bloody mary (now and then).
By this time the original weight/volume is reduced by 50%.
Simmer a while longer to get a spaghetti sauce thickness...
Voila, can it

When I open the jar and want to make spaghetti, then I saute garlic, onion, add oregano, fresh basil, thyme to it and let it simmer a while....Umm... Mama mia.. perfetto, ha !

This post was edited by seysonn on Thu, Oct 23, 14 at 4:36