Here’s why the tomato aisle confuses everyone, cooks included. The words on the jars have no standard definitions, and worse, they mean different things in different countries. “Tomato puree” is a raw strained product in Italy and a cooked concentrate in America. “Tomato sauce” is a seasoned ready-to-use can in the US and something close to plain passata in Australia. So when a British recipe calls for puree, it often means what your store labels paste. An Australian pasta recipe’s “tomato sauce” is not the can your supermarket puts under that name.
Once you know the words are unreliable, the fix is simple: identify jars by what’s in them, not what they’re called. And for that, one distinction sorts almost everything.
The one distinction that matters: cooked or raw
Every smooth red product in the aisle is strained tomatoes at some concentration, the water axis our substitutes guide is built on. What separates the players in character rather than thickness is whether the tomatoes were cooked before packing.
Raw side: passata. Passata is an uncooked puree strained of skins and seeds, which is the entire point of it. Bottled fresh-tomato brightness, no cooked flavor yet, ready to become whatever your pot makes of it. On American shelves it hides under the alias “strained tomatoes” (the carton brands especially). It’s the traditional base for quick pasta sauces and the classic no-cook pizza sauce, where that fresh character survives into the finished dish.
Cooked side: everything else. US-style puree is cooked and mildly concentrated, deeper and rounder than passata with the fresh top notes traded for body. Paste is the end of that road, cooked way down to a concentrate measured in spoonfuls. European tubes labeled “double concentrate” are exactly what they say. And the fully dehydrated cousin, tomato bouillon, gets its own decoder. And American canned “tomato sauce” is a cooked, seasoned, ready-to-pour product, useful, but carrying salt and seasoning decisions someone else made.
Read a jar with that one question, cooked or raw, and the label’s vocabulary stops mattering.
The decoder table
| The jar | What it actually is | Character | Reach for it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passata / “strained tomatoes” | Raw, strained, uncooked | Bright, fresh | Quick sauces, pizza, anything you’ll cook yourself |
| Tomato puree (US) | Cooked, lightly concentrated | Round, deep | Long-simmered dishes needing body |
| Tomato paste / concentrate | Cooked far down | Intense, savory | By the spoonful, for depth |
| Tomato sauce (US can) | Cooked, seasoned, ready | Someone else’s recipe | Shortcuts, knowingly |
| Coulis | Strained, lightly cooked, often seasoned | Chef-y, smooth | Plating and finishing, mostly restaurant vocabulary |
| Pizza / marinara sauce | Fully seasoned finished sauces | Complete | When you want assembly, not cooking |
The chunky side of the aisle, whole, diced, crushed, runs on its own rules, including the firming-agent surprise. It’s all decoded in our canned tomato guide.
Homemade versions, in one paragraph each
Puree at home is just the blanch-peel plus a blender and a strainer. Peel, blitz, strain out seeds. Simmer briefly if you want the US-style cooked character, or not at all if you want passata. Passata at scale is the great Italian September ritual, bushels through a food mill into bottles. If you’re preserving your own, the safe-jarring rules in our canning guide apply in full, acidification included. Paste at home is honestly a long afternoon of stirring for a small jar. It’s the one product where buying the tube wins on every axis but pride.
Which should you actually keep in the pantry?
The compact answer, consistent with the one-can strategy from the canned guide. Whole peeled tomatoes for everything chunky-to-smooth, a tube of paste for depth, and one bottle of passata if quick fresh-tasting sauces are in your rotation. Puree and canned sauce become optional once those three are on the shelf, since the first two rebuild them on demand. The seasoned products are better chosen deliberately than defaulted to. That’s the whole aisle in three purchases.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between passata and tomato puree?
Passata is raw: strained, uncooked tomatoes with fresh flavor intact. US-style tomato puree is cooked and lightly concentrated, with deeper, rounder flavor. Confusingly, in the UK and Europe “puree” often means the concentrated paste, so identify jars by cooked-versus-raw, not by the word.
Is passata the same as tomato sauce?
No in America, nearly yes in Australia. US canned tomato sauce is cooked and seasoned; passata is raw, plain, strained tomatoes. Australian recipes saying “tomato sauce” for cooking usually mean a passata-like product, one of the aisle’s classic cross-border traps.
What is passata called in the US?
Usually “strained tomatoes,” especially the carton brands. Same product: uncooked, strained of skins and seeds, ready to cook. If the label says strained and the ingredient list is just tomatoes, you’ve found it.
Can I use tomato paste instead of puree or passata?
Yes, by rehydrating: loosen paste with water toward the thickness you need, then simmer briefly. The character will be more cooked and less fresh than real passata. Full ratios for every direction are in our substitutes chart.
What is tomato coulis?
A smooth, strained, lightly cooked and typically seasoned tomato sauce, mostly restaurant vocabulary for a refined pour-over or plating sauce. For home cooking, seasoned passata or a quick blended sauce lands in the same place.
Bottom line: ignore the words and ask the one question, cooked or raw. Stock three things: whole cans, a paste tube, and a bottle of passata. Every other jar on the shelf is one of those three at a different point on the axis, wearing a different country’s name for it. The rest of the tomato kitchen lives at our cooking central.