Never buy canned tomatoes if you see this on the label

A single, often-overlooked ingredient on the back of the label can noticeably affect how tomatoes behave in a recipe.

If you’ve ever made the same marinara or tomato soup recipe twice only to end up with completely different results, you might be relieved to hear that it likely has nothing to do with your technique. Instead, the difference may be hiding in your canned tomatoes.

A single, often-overlooked ingredient on the back of the label can noticeably affect how tomatoes behave in a recipe. Depending on the can, one batch of sauce or soup can simmer down into something silky and rich, while another can stay stubbornly "meaty" or chunky, no matter how long it sits on the stove.

The ingredient is calcium chloride, a perfectly safe and common mineral additive that manufacturers use to help tomatoes retain their structure. While it isn't a health hazard, it can change how tomatoes cook and break down.

Whether you want to avoid chunky bits in a smooth sauce or keep diced tomatoes intact in a stew, checking the ingredient list for calcium chloride is an easy way to help ensure your dinners turn out exactly how you want them.

How Calcium Chloride Affects Canned Tomatoes

To prevent canned tomatoes from turning into mush before they reach your pantry, manufacturers add calcium chloride, a mineral salt that acts as a firming agent. It helps tomatoes hold their shape during processing and throughout their long shelf life. It’s routinely included in American brands.

But according to America’s Test Kitchen, it isn't allowed in genuine imported San Marzano tomatoes, and most standard Italian whole peeled tomatoes tend to skip it, too.

The tradeoff is that those tomatoes can stay surprisingly firm. You can simmer a pot of diced tomatoes for hours, and the little cubes will often look much the same as when they came out of the can. So if you’re trying to build a cohesive, velvety base for soup, sauce, or another dish, that firmness can get in the way.

When You Should Look at the Label

There are plenty of situations where canned tomatoes preserved with calcium chloride is a feature in the recipe. For example, a chunky chili, a hearty minestrone, a casserole, or shakshuka all benefit from distinct pieces of tomato that hold their shape.

But if you're making marinara, tomato soup, pizza sauce, butter chicken, or another dish where you want the tomatoes to melt into the background, it's worth choosing a can without calcium chloride. In these dishes, we often want the tomatoes to soften, collapse, and blend into the sauce, and that's harder to achieve when the tomatoes have been treated to stay firm, even after extended cooking.

Of course, a blender or immersion blender can solve the problem, but if your goal is a naturally smooth sauce with minimal effort, starting with tomatoes that don't contain calcium chloride will often get you there faster. For this reason, I’ve found that many professional cooks and recipe developers recommend whole peeled tomatoes packed in juice, particularly Italian varieties, when making pasta sauces and soups.

The best can of tomatoes is simply the one that matches what you're cooking. For a silky sauce, you’ll want to skip the cans that contain calcium chloride. But for distinct tomato pieces that hold their shape, those same cans may be exactly what you're looking for.

Read the original article on Simply Recipes