Good Product: Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes

We used these to make a quick sauce for our thin crust pizza this weekend, and at first the roasted-ness was "Hmm..." but in the end we decided it gave the sauce a richer flavor and married well with the teaspoon of sugar we like to throw in.

We use Muir Glen Organic canned tomatoes frequently but had never bought the fire roasted version. Maybe it's new? Or maybe we just haven't been looking hard enough. Either way, these tomatoes have nice, slightly charred bits and gave our pizza sauce a lot of oomph, which isn't always the case when we make our own on the fly.

In February, we linked to a NY Times article by Mark Bittman in which he describes roasting his own canned tomatoes. We never tried that, and we suspect it makes the tomatoes more caramelized, maybe sweeter.

The Muir Glen tomatoes are supposedly roasted over natural hardwoods and have a smokier flavor, which suited us just fine. We'll definitely buy them again to add an extra layer of complexity to recipes that call for canned tomatoes.

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Recipes:

(Image: Muir Glen)

Comments (10)

They're not new. They're especially delicious in chili.

I love them. I make a really simple soup with them that is delicious.

They're delicious in baked mac & cheese!

I use these a lot. I've also tried roasting canned tomatoes like Mark Bittman says he does, and that produces a different, but equally good, flavor.

These are a pantry staple for me and I adore them. I'm so accustomed to using them that the un-fire roasted version seems strange and boring.

This brand has been around (at least out here in California) for a long time. YUMMY!

thanks for this tip - i was confronted with the canned tomato dilemma once again today (san marzano? other italian? california? organic?) when i saw these and remembered this post. i used them for a marinara sauce for pizza as well, and it came out great.

in the past i've made alton brown's pantry-friendly tomato sauce, and he also roasts the canned tomatoes, which does result in a nice caramelization (and charred bits) on the tomato.

I totally agree with splatgirl! The chopped ones are esp. god they keep the integrity of their shape really well.