Slicer tomato varieties
Slicer is the everyday tomato: round, 60 to 280 g, large enough to cover a slice of bread in two or three cuts but not the single-fruit-per-sandwich weight of a beefsteak. It is the category most gardens actually need and the one people skip over on the way to something more dramatic. The twenty-eight varieties here run 52 to 85 days from transplant, the widest useful season range on the site outside the red page, and they are not visually boring: Green Zebra, Purple Zebra and Queen of the Night are all slicers, alongside the plain reds like Early Girl and Rutgers.
- Varieties
- 28
- Days to harvest (from transplant)
- 52–85
- Fruit weight
- 2–16 oz (60–450 g)
- Growth habit
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19 Indeterminate
6 Determinate
2 Dwarf
1 Semi-determinate
All 28 slicer tomato varieties
How to choose
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This is the category where season length does most of the work. Siletz at 52 days and Black Beauty at 85 are nearly five weeks apart, which in a short-summer region is the difference between two months of harvest and two weeks of it. Sort by days first and choose from what survives that filter.
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Slicers are the practical middle and that is their argument. A 200 g fruit ripens faster than a 500 g beefsteak, cracks less, sets more reliably in heat, and the plant carries more of them. If you want tomatoes for sandwiches and salads through the season rather than one photogenic giant, this page beats the beefsteak page on every practical measure.
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Nine of the twenty-eight are not indeterminate, which is unusual for this size class: determinate slicers such as Celebrity, Siletz and Oregon Spring, Marmande as a semi-determinate, and the dwarfs Patio Princess and Sweet Scarlet Dwarf. If you want a slicing tomato without a full-season trellis, start there; the container-friendly page lists the ones documented for pots.
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Do not read slicer as plain. Green Zebra, Purple Zebra and Queen of the Night are striped, Lemon Boy and Azoychka are yellow, White Tomesol is white and Black Beauty is near-black. Colour and shape variety in this category is nearly as wide as on the beefsteak page, at half the fruit weight and two weeks less waiting.
Compare side by side
| Color | Uses | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arkansas Traveler | 85 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Azoychka | 75 (estimated) | 5–8 oz (140–230 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 4 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Black Beauty | 85 (estimated) | 6–10 oz (170–280 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 2 (estimated) / 5 (estimated) | Slicing, Fresh & salads | |
| Black Prince | 75 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Black Sea Man | 75 | 4–10 oz (110–280 g) | Determinate | 3 (estimated) / 2 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) | Slicing, Fresh & salads | |
| Brown Sugar | 75 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Indeterminate | (estimated) | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing |
| Celebrity | 72 | 7–11 oz (200–300 g) | Determinate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Slicing, Fresh & salads, Canning | |
| Celebrity Plus | 70 | 7–9 oz (210–250 g) | Determinate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Slicing, Fresh & salads, Canning | |
| Costoluto Fiorentino | 80 (estimated) | 6–10 oz (170–280 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) | Slicing, Sauce & paste, Canning | |
| Costoluto Genovese | 80 (estimated) | 5–8 oz (140–230 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) | Slicing, Sauce & paste, Canning | |
| Creole | 80 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Early Girl | 59 | 4–6 oz (110–170 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Slicing, Fresh & salads | |
| Golden Jubilee | 80 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Green Zebra | 78 (estimated) | 2–5 oz (60–140 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 2 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Jet Star | 72 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Jubilee | 80 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Lemon Boy | 72 | 7–10 oz (200–280 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 2 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Slicing, Fresh & salads | |
| Long Keeper | 78 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Marmande | 75 (estimated) | 5–8 oz (140–230 g) (estimated) | Semi-determinate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing, Sauce & paste | |
| Oregon Spring | 58 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Determinate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Patio Princess | 68 (estimated) | 3–5 oz (90–140 g) (estimated) | Dwarf | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Purple Zebra | 80 | 4–6 oz (110–170 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 4 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Queen of the Night | 80 | 3–4 oz (85–100 g) | Indeterminate | 4 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing, Snacking | |
| Red Deuce | 75 (estimated) | 7–11 oz (200–300 g) (estimated) | Determinate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing, Canning | |
| Rutgers | 75 (estimated) | 6–8 oz (170–230 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 3 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) / 4 (estimated) | Canning, Sauce & paste, Slicing | |
| Siletz | 52 | 5–8 oz (140–220 g) | Determinate | 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing | |
| Sweet Scarlet Dwarf | 65 (estimated) | 6–16 oz (170–450 g) (estimated) | Dwarf | 4 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Snacking | |
| White Tomesol | 80 (estimated) | 5–8 oz (140–230 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 4 (estimated) / 1 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing |
Values marked like this (estimated) are estimates.
Frequently asked questions
What is a slicer tomato?
A medium to large round tomato, typically 60 to 280 g, grown for fresh eating and cut into slices rather than eaten whole or cooked down. It is the default garden tomato and the category most seed catalogues do not label at all.
What is the difference between a slicer and a beefsteak?
Weight and structure. Beefsteaks are larger, typically over 6 oz, flattened and many-chambered; slicers are rounder and lighter. Practically, slicers ripen faster, crack less and set more reliably in heat, which is why they are the more forgiving choice.
Which slicing tomato ripens earliest?
Siletz at 52 days from transplant, then Oregon Spring at 58 and Early Girl at 59, all among the earliest in the whole catalogue. All figures counted from transplant, not from sowing.
Are there slicing tomatoes that do not need staking?
Nine here: the determinate Celebrity, Celebrity Plus, Red Deuce, Siletz, Oregon Spring and Black Sea Man, the semi-determinate Marmande, and the dwarfs Patio Princess and Sweet Scarlet Dwarf. The other nineteen are indeterminate and need full-season support.
Are slicing tomatoes good for cooking?
They work but they are not optimised for it. Higher water and seed content than a paste or plum type means longer cooking to reduce a sauce. For occasional cooking that is fine; for preserving in quantity, the paste and plum pages are the right starting point.