Tomato purée

Tomato purée is a thick liquid made by cooking and straining tomatoes. The difference between tomato paste, tomato purée, and tomato sauce is consistency; tomato puree has a thicker consistency and a deeper flavour than sauce.

The definitions of tomato purée vary from country to country. In the U.S., tomato purée is a processed food product, usually consisting of only tomatoes, but can also be found in seasoned form. It differs from tomato sauce or tomato paste in consistency and content; tomato purée generally lacks the additives common to a complete tomato sauce, and does not have the thickness of paste.

To prepare tomato purée, ripe tomatoes are washed and the leaves and stem are removed. Some processors remove the skin of the tomato as well. The fruit flesh is then mashed or mechanically chopped to the desired consistency.

Tomato purée can be used in soups, stews, sauces, or any other dish where the tomato flavor is desired, but not the texture. It is less often used by professional chefs, who find it to have an overly cooked flavor compared to other forms of canned tomatoes. This is sometimes a non-issue, as in long-cooked dishes, but in quick sauces such as a marinara sauce it is undesirable.

Tomato purée has approx 14% solids content. Lower solids content is due to filtering, higher content is due to concentration of the product.

Tomato purée is never referred as "passata di pomodoro", when it has been sieved to remove seeds and lumps. Passata's main difference is that it is not cooked. In this form, it is generally sold in bottles or aseptic packaging, and is most common in Europe. In the United Kingdom, in this form the product passata is always uncooked, otherwise it would be tomato puree (see above).