With so many canned sardines in tomato sauce available, it can be paralyzing to decide which brand to reach for. The one with the best-looking can? The one with the tagline embedded in your brain? Maybe you close your eyes, point at the sardine aisle at random, and get whatever brand you land at. Because all canned sardines are all the same, right?
After two days of eating nothing but 12 different kinds of canned sardines, let me tell you: They're not.
Canned sardines vary wildly in taste and quality. They contain sardines big and small; mushy and flaky; chunky and skinny. Tomato sauces, running the gamut from watery to gloopy, have different volumes of savory, tart, and sweet.
This taste test features four picks—with the biggest fish and the tastiest sauces—that you’ll want to make a beeline for.
How we tested
I went to several supermarkets and got all the different brands of sardines in tomato sauce I could find. Together with eleven local brands, I chose to include one foreign contender: Ayam Brand, a household name in Malaysia in Singapore. For science!
I excluded variants that featured fried sardines or a hot and spicy tomato sauce. I also skipped the bottled sardines due to their difference in quality and price point.
The testing was straightforward. Straight out of the can, each brand was judged by the qualities of its fish (size, texture) and tomato sauce (amount, consistency, and flavor).
