There’s nothing you can do when you’re craving canned sardines. Canned tuna is lean meat, while sardines are nutritious. Beef from the sea! Sardines are caught and enjoyed around the world, and like many of their canned fish brethren, canned sardines have grown in popularity since 2020.
However, the term sardine It does not refer to a specific type of fish. As Anna Hezel, author tin to tableexplains, “There are a handful of species that could be packaged as ‘sardines,'” such as herring, herring, and other small fish that exist at the bottom of the food chain. Sardines are not predators, but that’s a good thing. Because they eat large amounts of plankton, they are particularly low in mercury, unlike many other fish.
Sardines are usually packed in water, olive oil or soybean oil. They can also be flavored, usually with lemon, tomato, or chili pepper. Sometimes it is also lightly smoked. Some sardines are boned and skinless before packaging; others are not. Of course, your choice depends on taste.
Generally speaking, sardines packed in olive oil taste better than those packed in neutral liquid, and sardines packed with bones and skin will be firmer. Sardine bones don’t produce any noticeable crunch, Hetzel said. “I prefer to buy sardines with skin and bones,” she says, “partly because skin and bones have a lot of good nutritional value. Also, it’s an aesthetic experience to open the can and see these perfect sardines. . Because sardines are canned under high pressure and heat, the bones almost dissolve in the process, she said.
To find the best canned sardines—the ones with rich, flaky flesh and a strong brine flavor—we conducted a blind taste test for a panel of Bon Appétit staff. After a spicy and opinionated 45 minutes, we walked away with three cans that we’re happy to buy again.
How we set up a blind taste test
Before the tasters took their first bite, I asked them to share how they most often enjoy canned sardines. Many people say they appreciate the rich flavor sardines bring to their dishes, with no effort required – just open the can. Others say they rely on sardines as a pantry powerhouse. A shelf-stable protein that adds bulk to pantry dishes like pasta and juiced toast.
To make sure our editors got the perfect taste of each contender, they tasted the sardines one by one, with no accompaniments and just regular saltine crackers. To make sure each sample tasted different from the next, our testers cleansed their palates with apple slices (Honeycrisp, if you must know). We tasted 10 sardines first, then narrowed down our favorites in the second round and then decided on the winner.
How we select products
For many of our taste tests, we focus on items sold in grocery stores across the country. But many grocery stores carry only a small amount of canned sardines, and many brands are only sold in specialty stores or online retailers. To obtain a broad sample of the sardine market, we purchased several cans commonly found in supermarkets, as well as some more niche brands.
