Few things sing summer like fresh-from-the-vine tomatoes. Being able to grow tomatoes with ultimate flavor will ensure you can enjoy the best fresh or sauce variety. There are over 10,000 tomato varieties, but here we have narrowed down the best-tasting tomatoes to grow. If you’re going to go to the trouble to care for a tomato plant, it had better produce good-tasting tomatoes, right? Read on to discover the sweetest heirlooms, hybrids, cherries, slicers and plum breeds around.
Best Tasting Tomatoes to Grow at Home
There are vining, determinate, cherry, grape, beefsteak and plum tomatoes. They come in more colors than just classic red, with some orange, pink, purple-tinged and yellow. They may be monotone, striped or mottled, and anything in between. Sometimes your choice will be determined by whether they are easy to grow – but more often than not, taste is the driving factor.
Even the shapes range from rounded common fruits to oval and multi-lobed. Some have juicier fruit, while others have dense flesh. The tastiest tomatoes for you to grow will depend upon what you use the fruit for, whether it is canning, snacks, slicing or cooking. Here we round up the best tasting tomato breeds you can try if you are craving sweet and sumptuous flavors.
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Best Heirloom Tomatoes
Heirloom tomatoes are those grown from seed that are open-pollinated and non-hybrid cultivars. Among these are every form of tomato you could wish for, with flavor profiles that run the gamut.
- Cherokee Purple: An indeterminate plant with dark rose skin and pinkish red flesh. It is said to rival Brandywine.
- Pineapple: An orange-yellow variety with good fruiting. Said to make excellent tomato juice.
- Aunt Ruby’s German Green: A large beefsteak with greenish hue, and a sweet, fruity flavor.
- Mortgage Lifter: Pinkish red, delicious fruit. Big producer.
- Caspian Pink: They call it Queen of the Pinks. Big pink fruit suitable for any type of consumption.
- Stupice: If you are impatient, these will be early season fruits. Smaller fruits but big taste.
- Kellog’s Breakfast: Very large, deeply yellow beefsteak fruit. Meaty flesh with tangy flavor.
- Marianna’s Peace: Large, pink fruit on very large plants. It will produce until frost.
- Striped German: Yellow, red, and orange coloring on skin and flesh. Huge, ribbed fruit with a sweetly complex flavor. Great slicer.
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Finest Hybrid Tomatoes
Hybrid tomatoes are deliberately crossed varieties. Seeds from one plant with desired traits are crossed with another to produce a specific type of fruit. Hybrids often vie as the tastiest tomatoes in flavor ratings. They are often developed with flavor in mind, plus things like disease resistance, size of fruit and storage longevity.
- Pink Delicious: A pink slicing tomato with sugary notes and disease resistance.
- Better Boy: Huge yield with delicious flavor. It produces so much, it is a Guinness World Record variety.
- Goliath: Huge, red beefsteak fruit. Very disease resistant.
- Juliet: Crack-resistant roma tomatoes. Indeterminate vines.
- Early Girl: Classic tomato that produces some of the earliest fruits in the garden.
- Sungold F1: Sweet, golden cherry tomatoes with excellent disease resistance.
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Tastiest Cherry Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes can be consumed like candy. They are small enough to be enjoyed anywhere and generally represent some of the most flavorful tomatoes you can cultivate in your backyards and gardens.
- Red Pearl: Disease and crack resistant, bright red, and juicy with thin skin.
- Sugar Lump: Deep red fruit with highly rated flavor.
- Red Currant: Very small fruit with sweet-tart flavor. Late blight resistant.
- Sakura Honey: Pink, grape shaped fruits with award winning taste.
- Maglia Rosa: Elongated fruits with skin dappled with pink. Prolific while fruiting
- Green Tiger: Perfect for those who like a little tang in their tomatoes. Oval fruits with green streaks.
- Dancing With Smurfs: Cute, tiny tomatoes. Red with purple at the top. A classic tomato flavor.
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Sweetest Cherries, Slicers and Plums
Some of the sweetest tomatoes are the hybrid cherry and grape varieties, but there are many best tasting tomatoes among the slicers and plums.
- Blush: Elongated cherry tomato with yellow and orange marbling. Ideal for salads and snacking.
- Sweet Million: Early maturing and massive yielding hybrid cherry.
- Gardener’s Delight: Generous clusters of early-cropping bite-sized toms.
- Candyland: Super-sweet ‘currant’ style tomato. Sweet as candy and very moreish.
- Black Cherry: Surprisingly sweet complex purple cordon tomato that looks and tastes sublime.
- Sun Sugar: Highly sweet cordon clusters. Split resistant and heavy yielding.
- Green Zebra: Speciality tomato with a tangy flavor. Delicious fruits with highly ornamental green stripes.
- Tomato Moneymaker: Cordon tomato with impressive globe shape. Heavy cropping and heat tolerant.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What Are the Best Tomatoes to Eat Raw?
Any of the grape and cherry varieties are excellent raw. Beefsteak cultivars are perfect to slice on your burger. I even like romas and plum tomatoes raw. Some gardeners say the heirlooms have the best flavor. Brandywine and Cherokee have robust, sweet flavors. In the end, the choice is subjective.
What Are the Best Tomatoes for Sandwiches?
Beefsteak tomatoes, hands-down, have the best texture, size, flavor and moisture content for a sandwich. Black Krim, Bushsteak, Brandy Boy and Supersteak are all classic beefsteak fruits with outstanding taste and chew.
