Tomato puree
Tomato purée is a processed food product, usually consisting of only tomatoes, but can also be found in pre seasoned form. It differs from tomato sauce or tomato paste in consistency and content; tomato puree generally lacks the additives common to a complete tomato sauce, and does not have the thickness of paste.
Tomato purée can be used in soups, stews, sauces, or any other dish where the tomato flavour is desired, but not the texture. It is often deprecated by professional chefs, who find it to have an overly cooked flavour compared to other forms of canned tomatoes. This not normally an issue, as dishes that are cooked for a long time, but in quick sauces such as a marinara sauce, it is undesirable.
Tomato purée is sometimes referred to as passata di pomodoro when it has been sieved to remove seeds and lumps. In this form it is generally sold in bottles or aseptic packaging, and is most common in Europe.
In the United Kingdom, 'tomato purée' usually refers to what in America is known as concentrated tomato paste.
Passata
Passata or passata di pomodoro refers to tomatoes that have been "passed" through a sieve to remove seeds and lumps. In this form it is generally sold in bottles. Use a tomato press to automatically convert your tomatoes to puree.
How much does one cup of tomato puree weigh?
Estimated US cup to weight equivalents:
| Ingredient | US Cups | Grams | Ounces | |
| Tomato Puree | 1 |
225 grams | 8 ounces | |
Conversion notes:
Every ingredient has a cups to ounces or grams conversion table. Search for the ingredient, cup to weight conversions are at the end of each ingredient page.
We also have a generic conversion table and a portions per person lookup.
Tunisian kitchen trick
A tip from from Jeffrey Steingarten's cookbook: "The man who ate everything" which he learned from a visit to Tunisia, where they use tomato puree an awful lot. Briefly sauté the tomato paste in a little olive oil to remove the metallic preserved taste that it can have.