White tomato varieties
White tomatoes are not white. They ripen to ivory, cream or the palest yellow, and the name describes the absence of red and orange pigment rather than the colour you actually get. The six varieties here cover the widest weight range of any colour group on this site: White Currant at one to three grams, smaller than a pea, through to Great White at 12 to 20 oz (340 to 570 g), a full beefsteak. That is a five-hundred-fold spread. All six are indeterminate and ripen between 75 and 85 days from transplant, so the plants and the calendar are consistent even though nothing else is.
- Varieties
- 6
- Days to harvest (from transplant)
- 75–85
- Fruit weight
- 0–20 oz (1–570 g)
- Growth habit
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6 Indeterminate
All 6 white tomato varieties
How to choose
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Ripeness is genuinely hard to judge here and it is the main reason to think twice before making a white variety your first tomato. There is no colour break to watch for: the fruit goes from pale green to pale cream in a shift that is easy to miss in dappled light. Learn the feel instead, a slight give under light pressure and easy separation from the stem.
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Size decides everything else. White Currant and Ivory Egg at 3 to 50 g are snacking and salad fruit; White Beauty, White Queen and White Tomesol at 140 to 340 g are slicers; Great White at up to 570 g is a beefsteak. There is nothing in this group that behaves like anything else in it apart from the colour.
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Expect low acidity to change how you cook with them rather than whether you should. White varieties generally read as mild, which makes them poor candidates for reducing into a sauce that needs backbone, and good ones for salads and salsas where a sharp tomato would dominate. Check the recorded acidity figures per variety rather than assuming the group behaves as one.
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All six are indeterminate, so every one of them needs full-season support. There is no compact white variety in this catalogue, which is worth knowing if the plant size rather than the fruit colour is your real constraint.
Compare side by side
| Color | Uses | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great White | 85 (estimated) | 12–20 oz (340–570 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 4 (estimated) / 1 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing, Juicing | |
| Ivory Egg | 75 (estimated) | 1–2 oz (30–50 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 4 (estimated) / 2 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Snacking, Roasting | |
| White Beauty | 85 (estimated) | 8–12 oz (230–340 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 4 (estimated) / 1 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing, Juicing | |
| White Currant | 75 (estimated) | <1 oz (1–3 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 5 (estimated) / 2 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Snacking | |
| White Queen | 85 (estimated) | 8–12 oz (230–340 g) (estimated) | Indeterminate | 4 (estimated) / 1 (estimated) / 3 (estimated) | Fresh & salads, Slicing, Juicing | |
| 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 model estimates, not confirmed from a source.
Frequently asked questions
Are white tomatoes really white?
No. They ripen to ivory, cream or very pale yellow. The name refers to the lack of the red and orange pigments found in ordinary tomatoes rather than to a genuinely white fruit.
How do I know when a white tomato is ripe?
By feel, not by colour. The change from pale green to cream is subtle and easy to misjudge. Ripe fruit gives slightly under light pressure and separates from the stem without force. This is the hardest colour group to judge by eye.
Do white tomatoes taste different?
They are generally milder and lower in acid than red varieties of the same size, which is why they turn up in salads and salsas more than in sauces. The acidity and sweetness figures are recorded per variety in the table, so compare those rather than relying on the colour as a proxy.
What is the largest white tomato?
Great White at 12 to 20 oz (340 to 570 g), which is beefsteak weight. At the other end White Currant is one to three grams, making this the widest weight range of any colour group in this catalogue.
Can white tomatoes be grown in containers?
Not easily. All six here are indeterminate and will need a tall support and a large root volume. If containers are the constraint, the container-friendly page is the right filter and no white variety appears on it.