🌱 Origin & Story
Amish Paste is said to trace to Amish communities in Wisconsin, with documented history beginning in the 1980s. The Medford, Wisconsin Amish settlement — the oldest surviving Amish community in the state, founded in 1920 — is frequently cited as the variety's home ground.
The seed entered the broader heirloom world through Tom Hauch, who acquired it from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Amish growers and shared it with the Landis Valley Museum, a living history farm in Lancaster that preserves Pennsylvania German agricultural heritage. From there, it made its way to the Seed Savers Exchange, appearing in the 1987 SSE Yearbook under the listing of Thane Earl.
That SSE listing was the turning point. Within a few years, Amish Paste went from a regional Amish variety to one of the most traded paste tomatoes in the seed-saving community. The Slow Food Foundation added it to the Ark of Taste — their catalog of heritage foods worth preserving — and it's stayed there since.
🍴 Flavor & Fruit
Large teardrop to oxheart-shaped fruits, 8–12 oz, deep red with thick, meaty walls and very few seeds. The flesh is dense and dry enough to cook down fast, but still juicy enough to eat fresh — a rare combination in a paste tomato.
The flavor is rich, sweet, and low-acid with genuine depth. Most paste varieties are workhorses — functional but flat-tasting. Amish Paste is a workhorse that also happens to taste exceptional. It reduces into a sauce with a complexity that store-bought paste tomatoes simply cannot touch.
Slice one crosswise and you'll see why people who make their own sauce won't grow anything else.
🍽️ In the Kitchen
Sauce: This is what Amish Paste was born for. Core, rough chop, simmer low and slow. It cooks down thick and sweet without needing to reduce for hours. A batch of these with garlic, basil, and olive oil makes a sauce you'll jar and hoard.
Roasted: Halve lengthwise, drizzle with olive oil, roast at 375°F until caramelized. Freeze them flat on sheet pans for winter pasta.
Fresh: Don't overlook it. Thick slices with mozzarella and basil — the low acid and meaty texture make a Caprese that holds up without going watery.
Canning: Ideal for whole-pack canning. The dense flesh holds its shape in the jar beautifully.
