Datterini tomatoes substitutes

The closest everyday swap in both forms. Tinned cherry tomatoes, often sold as pomodorini, sit right next to datterini on Italian import shelves and behave almost identically.

Best for

quick pasta sauces, roasting, pizza, bruschetta, fish dishes, salads

Slightly less sweet and rounder in shape, with a touch more acidity, so the sauce is marginally sharper. Taste at the five minute mark and add a pinch of sugar only if it tastes sour; often it does not. Round cherry tomatoes also have more seeds and juice than datterini, so a fresh sauce takes a couple of extra minutes to thicken.

The same oblong shape as datterini and reliably available year round, which makes them the practical choice out of season.

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.

The pantry answer, and workable if you correct for the acidity. 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.

Larger than datterini but bred for sweetness and low acid, which is the key characteristic to match. 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.

The honest technique for faking datterini sweetness out of ordinary supermarket tomatoes. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.