I agree Dave, the salsa/sauce tastes only as good as the tomatoes that go into it.

So, whatever varieties grow well in your area will be your best bet. My big winners this year were Golden Jubilee, Pineapple, Big Rainbow, Mortgage Lifter, Great White, and my good old canning standby, Rutgers. It was my best tomato year in a long time, so I'm a happy canner, even though I've not had a single ripe Garden Peach and now that it's rained for a week and temps are in the low 60s, I'm betting I won't. Most of my remaining tomatoes have split, unfortunately. I've canned a LOT of tomato products, though, so it's all good.

I don't grow the Roma/paste types for exactly the reason Dave mentioned, I don't think they taste particularly good. They'll make your sauce thicker, faster, but won't do much for the flavor.

Annie

Principe Borghese is an Italian tomato usually used for dehydrating but it is really flavorful for making paste. I mix it with Rutgers and/or Cherokee Purple. I agree that using more than one variety makes a more interesting flavor whether in sauce, paste, or juice. I have tried dehydrating tomatoes, grinding them up, and making paste but it is not to my liking for all the extra work.

Nancy

Nancy, I'm undecided about Principe Borhese. To me it's more like a big cherry tomato but it's very prolific so I'll probably grow again next summer. It's a good size for either oven roasting or semi-dehydrating to store in olive oil.

I like Opalka for making sauces and think the flavor is great. I also liked Vilms and Cuor di Bue as well as a San Marzano for small paste types that I like for dehydrating to a soft raisin type texture to use in recipes.

Giallo De Summer for a yellow slicer.

Paul Robeson for a surprisingly different flavor, deep and meaty and sweet.

Asian Yellow seems to be our winner this year for a yellow pear-shaped cherry. Very sweet but not as early as I expected thanks to a less than full sun location.

Nancy, I also tried dehydrating and making tomato powder, but my tomatoes never got really dry enough to powder and what I did make stuck together into a big tomato hunk. Definitely not what I had in mind. (sigh)

Annie

I tend to grow my own plants from seed. I used to buy the plants but one year I was elated to find Golden Jubilee plants for sale (Home Depot). To my dismay they turned out to be all paste tomatoes after I went thru the work of growing them.

Now I save my own seed from select heirlooms I tried from Sand Hill Preservation in Iowa. One variety I got from that source produces nicely each year and somehow it escapes the plague of early blight even though I never spray for it. A real winner! I cannot remember the name of the tomato however.

I did learn the hard way to always save at least two years worth of seed. Years ago I got a wonderful Italian oxheart tomato from an Italian immigrant who grew them for his restaurant. Sweet, thin skinned and just very flavorful. Somehow the seed I had saved off one crop got tossed out and by the time I realized it, it was too late to get more as the crop was done growing for the season. I lost that variety after having it for many years. Now I always save two years worth of seed so I have a backup in case of some disaster.