Can You Substitute Tomato Paste substitute tomato sauce for diced tomatoes Tomato Sauce? Although they aren’t interchangeable, tomato paste will do in a pinch.
There are so many tomato-based products on the market that it can be hard to find cupboard space for all of them. Chances are that at one time or another you’ll be holding a can of stewed tomatoes in your hand while the recipe you’re trying to make calls for whole tomatoes. When making tomato sauce from tomato paste, there’s some good news and some bad news. Because tomato paste is a concentrated form of tomato puree, you can dilute it to the consistency of tomato sauce without much fuss. It won’t taste exactly like tomato sauce, though. Tomato sauce is a seasoned product. The flavor may vary a little from brand to brand, but most varieties will taste sweeter, saltier and more savory than plain, diluted tomato paste.
Although you can use it without additional seasonings, you may be disappointed with the results unless the dish you’re making has lots of other highly seasoned ingredients to help camouflage your sauce’s lack of zest. To make your paste and water mixture taste more like full-bodied tomato sauce, add a little sugar to combat the acidic bite, and include a few of your favorite spices like salt, pepper, garlic powder or onion powder. This is a season-to-taste proposition you’ll have to experiment with a little. Try a pinch at first and then perform a taste test. Keep adding and adjusting from there. Another option is to add some heavy duty flavor enhancers. Depending on the recipe, adding a couple of ingredients from the list below could help you better approximate the flavor of a quality tomato sauce product and even contribute some unexpected gusto and zip.