Datterini Tomatoes substitute

Best substitute

Cherry Tomatoes, Fresh or Tinned

Use the same amount by weight as the datterini tomatoes you are replacing

Best for quick pasta sauces

Close match

The best substitute for datterini tomatoes is cherry tomatoes, fresh or tinned, at 1:1 by weight, followed by grape tomatoes. If you only have tinned plum or San Marzano tomatoes, use them 1:1 but add half a teaspoon of sugar and an extra glug of olive oil per 400 gram tin to make up for the acidity. Datterini bring sweetness and body with very little sharpness, which is why a sauce made from them needs no sugar and almost no cooking.

Other datterini tomatoes substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Grape Tomatoes
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
The same oblong shape as datterini and reliably available year round, which makes them the practical choice out of season.
What changes
Best for
roasting, quick pasta sauces, salads, sheet-pan dinners, skewers
Firmer, drier and thicker skinned than datterini, and less sweet. In a pan they hold their shape stubbornly and take two or three extra minutes to burst and collapse, so press them with the back of a spoon. In a raw salad they can taste mealy, which twenty minutes with a pinch of salt largely fixes.
3Tinned Plum or San Marzano Tomatoes Plus Sugar
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight, plus ½ tsp sugar and 1 tbsp olive oil per 400 g
The pantry answer, and workable if you correct for the acidity.
What changes
Crush the tomatoes by hand rather than blending and cook them a few minutes longer than you would datterini.
Best for
long-simmered sauces, ragu, pizza sauce, braises, soups
Considerably more acidic and much more cooked-tomato in flavour, so a datterini pasta swapped to San Marzano tastes brighter, sharper and less sweetly fruity. The sugar softens the acid and the extra oil restores the round, rich mouthfeel that datterini give without help. Do not use tomato passata alone for a dish that wanted whole burst tomatoes; it has no texture.
4Campari or Cocktail Tomatoes, Quartered
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
Larger than datterini but bred for sweetness and low acid, which is the key characteristic to match.
What changes
Quarter or halve them so the pieces are roughly datterini sized.
Best for
quick sauces, salads, bruschetta, roasting, fresh sauces
Sweet and juicy, and in a raw or barely cooked dish very close to the mark. They are wetter than datterini, so a pan sauce needs a few extra minutes to reduce and can end up thin if you rush it. Their thicker skins can curl into unpleasant strips in a long cook; peel them if the sauce is going to simmer.
5Roma or Plum Tomatoes, Halved and Roasted
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight, roasted 25 minutes at 400 F
The honest technique for faking datterini sweetness out of ordinary supermarket tomatoes.
What changes
Halve them, toss with olive oil and salt, roast cut side up until the edges caramelise, then use them with all their juices.
Best for
pasta sauces, sauces made in advance, soups, pizza, bruschetta
Roasting drives off water and concentrates the sugars, which is exactly what datterini already have naturally, so this gets closer than any raw substitution. The trade-off is a distinctly roasted, slightly smoky note that raw datterini do not have, and half an hour of oven time. Worth it when good small tomatoes are simply not available.
6Passata Plus a Handful of Halved Cherry Tomatoes
Taste and texture differ
Use ¾ cup passata plus 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes for every 400 g datterini
Useful when you need body and smoothness as well as the pop of whole tomatoes, which is what a tin of datterini gives you in one go.
What changes
Best for
pasta sauces, baked pasta, pizza, gnocchi
The passata supplies the sauce and the fresh tomatoes the texture and sweetness. Passata is more acidic than datterini and tastes more cooked, so add a pinch of sugar and taste before serving. It also makes a smoother, more uniform sauce than the chunky, rustic one datterini produce.
7Sun-Dried Tomatoes as a Booster, Not a Replacement
Different taste
2 to 3 chopped pieces added to a 400 g tin of ordinary tomatoes
Not a substitute by volume, but a genuinely effective way to borrow the concentrated sweetness datterini have when all you own is a tin of standard tomatoes.
What changes
Best for
pasta sauces, braises, soups, sauces that will simmer
Two or three chopped pieces disappear into the sauce and add a deep sweet-savoury undertone that closes much of the gap. Add more and the sauce turns leathery, tangy and unmistakably sun-dried, which is a different flavour entirely. Rinse oil-packed ones and chop them small so they soften fully.

What is Datterini Tomatoes?

Datterini Tomatoes is Datterini are small oblong date-shaped tomatoes from southern Italy with unusually high sugar, low acidity, thin skins and few seeds, sold fresh in summer and increasingly in tins and jars.

Cooking tips

Do not add sugar reflexively. Real datterini are already sweet and need none, and a common mistake is following a habit learned on acidic tinned tomatoes. Taste the sauce at five minutes, then decide. If you have substituted an already sweet tomato and added sugar as well, the sauce turns cloying and there is no way back.
Datterini break down fast because the skins are thin, so ten to twelve minutes in olive oil with garlic is a complete sauce. Long simmering wastes them and drives off the fresh fruity character you paid for. If you have substituted firmer grape tomatoes, allow a few more minutes and help them along with the back of a wooden spoon.
Burst them, do not blend them. Pressing the tomatoes against the pan gives a sauce with visible pieces of skin and flesh, which is the texture the dish is meant to have. A blender turns it into a smooth orange puree with a frothy look and a flatter taste.
If you are using a tin or jar, keep the packing liquid. It is thin and sweet rather than the thick acidic passata that comes with plum tomatoes, so reduce it in the pan for a few minutes rather than pouring it down the sink, and it becomes the body of the sauce.
Fresh datterini are worth eating raw and barely dressed. If you have swapped in firmer grape or Roma tomatoes for a raw salad, cut them, salt them, and leave them ten to twenty minutes so the salt draws out juice and softens the flesh before you add oil.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave datterini out and use whatever tomatoes I have?

Yes, in almost every recipe, as long as you correct for acidity. Any tomato will make a tomato sauce; what you are matching is sweetness and low acid. Use cherry or grape tomatoes at 1:1 with no adjustment, or tinned plum tomatoes at 1:1 with half a teaspoon of sugar and an extra spoonful of olive oil per tin.

What is the difference between datterini and cherry tomatoes?

Shape and sugar. Datterini, also written datterino in the singular and sometimes sold as date tomatoes or Italian baby plum tomatoes, are oblong rather than round, and they are bred for a notably high sugar to acid ratio with thin skins and few seeds. Cherry tomatoes are round and generally a little sharper. In practice they are close enough to swap freely.

Are tinned datterini worth buying over ordinary tinned tomatoes?

For a quick pasta sauce that will cook for ten minutes, yes, because there is no long simmer to build depth and the tomato's own sweetness is doing all the work. For a ragu or anything that will cook for two hours, an ordinary good tin of plum tomatoes ends up in much the same place and costs a fraction as much.

Which substitute is best for a raw sauce or bruschetta?

Fresh cherry tomatoes if they are in season, or Campari and cocktail tomatoes, both of which are sweet enough to eat uncooked. Avoid grape tomatoes raw unless you salt them first, because they are firm to the point of being mealy, and avoid tinned tomatoes of any kind, which taste cooked and metallic in a raw preparation.

Do I need to peel them?

No. Datterini skins are thin enough to disappear into a sauce, which is part of their appeal, and the same is true of cherry tomatoes. Grape tomatoes and Campari tomatoes have tougher skins that can curl into noticeable strips in a longer cook, so peel those if the sauce will simmer more than about twenty minutes, or blitz them briefly if you do not mind losing the texture.

Related substitutes

More vegetables & aromatics substitutes

Datterini Tomatoes substitute

Other datterini tomatoes substitutes

2Grape Tomatoes

3Tinned Plum or San Marzano Tomatoes Plus Sugar

4Campari or Cocktail Tomatoes, Quartered

5Roma or Plum Tomatoes, Halved and Roasted

6Passata Plus a Handful of Halved Cherry Tomatoes

7Sun-Dried Tomatoes as a Booster, Not a Replacement