Here are my family’s current 20 favorite tomato varieties as of 2025. They are primarily chosen based on flavor, production, and how well they've grown in our Colorado Front Range gardens.
Even though these varieties have been all-stars for our family, don’t limit yourself! Be adventurous. My idea of excellent tomato flavor might not be someone else’s cup of tea, and variations in growing conditions (e.g. watering, fertilizing, soil, or a run in with hail) might make one just okay for me but a stand out for you, and vice versa. Many of the varieties I offer in any given year are new to me, so maybe we’ll both find a new favorite to add to our list in future years! I do scrupulous research when selecting new varieties to make sure it will be appropriate for our Colorado growing conditions *and* for stand-out flavor, so be confident branching out.
Without further ado, here are 20 varieties we love, in no particular order, but divided into slicers, cherries, pastes, and for small spaces. You can find explanations of tomato terminology here.
Our Top Tomatoes
Slicers and Beefsteaks
Berkeley Tie-Dye Pink: This is a tomato that has been in our garden almost every year since we first grew it in 2016. Medium to large sized fruit with excellent sweet, rich, complex flavor and good production. After we moved into this house three years ago, I recommended this one to my neighbor, and he asks for these plants every year now.
Raspberry Mochi: Lovely fruity balanced flavor. Mahogany 185 g (medium) tomatoes with green shoulders. Productive.
Lucid Gem: Great flavor, balanced and rich. Beautiful orage color with antho (blue/black) shoulders. Good production.
Cowboy: Robust flavor, nicely acidic, with a meaty texture. I got very large fruits that were well suited for use on a sandwich or fancy grilled cheeses, but they were also amazing just cutting up and snacking on, with or without salt. Pretty deep maroon color.
Porkchop: Delicious, bright and nice acidity that’s balanced. Almost citrusy. Melts in your mouth. Yellow beefsteak with good production.
Kozula 24: Balanced, complex flavor, fruity, not acidic. My neighbor loved this one too when we did a taste test. Good production. Pretty striping.
Irish Stripes: I got a good number of these beefsteaks, at least 6, in my 2024 garden, growing them in ground. Full, robust tomato flavor. Beautiful fruit with stripes.
Thorburn’s Terra Cotta: copper beefsteak, not the most productive when I grew it in 2023, but the flavor was very good. Complex, smokey, and sweet.
Sungold (hybrid): the only hybrid that has earned a place in our garden every year, or almost every year - there are so many tomato varieties to try! Produces well with lots of vigor and no pest or disease problems. Very sweet juicy burst of flavor with fruity notes.
Cherries and Cocktail Tomatoes
Blondkopfchen: a staple in our garden for the last 8 years. Our kids have eaten these right out of the garden their entire lives. They are a multiflora variety, meaning they produce many fruits in clusters. Yellow, delicious, refreshing, and balanced - not too sweet and not too tart.
Barry’s Crazy Cherry: This one became a new favorite in 2024. They have a fruity flavor that my son couldn’t get enough of. It did really well with low water as well and kept well for an extended amount of time on the counter.
Kiss the Sky (large cherry/cocktail/small slicer): I couldn’t believe how productive this plant was in our 2024 garden. And excellent balanced flavor to boot. Dusky purple color, saladette size - 54 grams.
Canning, Pastes, and Plum Tomatoes
Bellstar: plum-type. Great multi-purpose red tomato, for processing or fresh eating. Good production and shelf life. Jointless, meaning you pick them without the stem.
German Lunchbox: very productive. Firm medium sized fruit that keep on the counter for a long time. Multi-purpose - fresh eating or processing.
Pink Fang: meaty interior and very productive. Great for freezing and making sauce.
San Marzano: excellent production and a classic red canning tomato.
Tomatoes for Small Spaces & Containers
Dwarf 1999: Fruity, tart burst of good flavor. Very productive. Yellow cherry tomatoes with dusky purple splashes on shoulders.
Dwarf Rebel Starfighter Dippers Delight: Bold tomato flavor, delicious. Pretty striped slicing tomatoes.
Dwarf Little Red Corvette: A nice burst of flavor with tropical fruitiness. Pretty dusky pink cherry tomatoes with antho (dark purple) splashed shoulders.
Dwarf Tasmanian Chocolate: wow flavor, very rich, bold, and complex. Mahogany colored small beefsteak with good production.
Bonus:
There are countless honorable mentions, but to name a few: amethyst jewel, black sea man, bloody butcher (early producer), ciliegia gialla, coyote, dwarf Gandolf variegated, dwarf neviskiy, dwarf orange cream, dwarf pico's pride (variegated), dwarf wild spudleaf, gajo de melon, japanese black trifele, girl girl’s weird thing, green doctor’s frosted, gypsy, jaune flamme, mortgage lifter, painted lady variegated, rebel starfighter Kayleigh Anne, reinhard’s purple sugar, sun sugar hybrid. To browse all of my tomato variety notes and to see more photos, head over here.