Let’s talk about every pizzeria’s closest guarded secret, their sauce.

Have you ever tried asking a pizzeria what they put in their sauce? Good luck! Even if you find a pizzeria that is very open to sharing, they likely will still withhold certain ingredients that make their sauce uniquely their’s. This makes sense though, a pizzeria’s sauce is one of the primary ways that they build flavor with their pizza.

I have spent years trying to decide what it is that I want out of my pizza sauce and the recipe I will present today is the culmination of all of this work. First, let’s talk about the common elements of pizza sauce and the different ways that they can be approached.

Tomatoes

You can’t have pizza sauce (at least in my book) without tomatoes. The first choice you need to make with tomatoes is whether you want to use fresh raw tomatoes or canned/jarred tomatoes. I recommend giving both a try because they flavor and consistency will vary greatly between fresh and canned. For my sauce I choose to use canned whole tomatoes that are packed in a puree with basil leaves. Being canned in this way I am able to decide the grind of my tomatoes without having to start from fresh and the basil adds a subtle background flavor note.

Once you have decided between fresh or canned, you need to decide the variety of tomato you want to use. Obviously if you go with fresh tomatoes there are a large number of options for you to choose from. There are still quite a few options with canned tomatoes but I would say there are considerably less to choose from. The variety of the tomato that you choose will primarily affect the flavor of your sauce. Some tomatoes are more acidic or more sweet. Knowing these differences can help you narrow it down if you know what flavor profile you want for your sauce. I choose to work with San Marzano tomatoes for both pizza and pasta sauce. San Marzano tomatoes have a beautiful sweetness to them that I have not found a true equivalent for. I like to have both a bright and slightly sweet flavor in my pizza sauce. By using San Marzano tomatoes I am able to achieve this without adding sugar.

The final big decision to make with your tomatoes is the consistency that you want. If your preference is a very smooth sauce you are going to want to grind your chosen tomatoes as far down as you can. If you choose to add other vegetables are larger ingredients you will want to blend this until smooth to. This type of sauce is very easy to spread and if you are careful you can ensure a consistent bite. Not a bad option at all, but this was not what I wanted out of my pizza sauce. I do process my tomatoes a little bit, but I prefer my sauce to end up slightly chunky. The primary reason for this is that I love the fresh burst of tomato flavor that comes when you bite into a small chunk of tomato on your pizza. This consistency can be easy to spread but will look inconsistent because of the chunks of tomato. Another thing to note is that as the tomatoes cook on the pizza the sauce will loosen and spread a bit on the pizza, meaning it can be a lot easier to end up with too much sauce if you don’t account for this.

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Other Vegetables

Some people prefer to add other vegetables like fresh onion to their pizza sauce. If you are one of those people go for it, but I would definitely recommend cooking them down to help build more flavor in your pizza sauce.

I don’t choose to add any additional vegetables to my pizza sauce so I am not going to spend a lot of time here.

Seasonings and Spices

Here is where you will build from the wonderful tomato flavor you have started with.

A must have with pizza sauce for me is a bit of garlic. I always prefer to fresh crush garlic. Now, being that I love garlic sometimes I will recommend too much. That being said, with this sauce I went easy on the garlic and just aimed to have a nice subtle backbone in my flavor profile.

Another must with pizza sauce (in my opinion) is a small pinch of salt. The purpose of salt is supposed to be bringing out complexity in the flavor of different ingredients and it can help everything marry. It is easy to go overboard with salt though, so be careful!

From there you can really add anything that you like. I choose to keep my pizza sauce simple but you can add pepper, sugar, various Italian herbs, etc.

Other Adjuncts

I think another very important ingredient is a touch of extra virgin olive oil. The little bit of fat added to the sauce just does something beautiful.

Adjuncts are where you can get crazy! Do whatever tastes great to you. I have even seen recipes calling for Russian dressing in their pizza sauce. Not what I love, but you do you!

Making Pizza Sauce

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All of the above areas combined make your version of a perfect pizza sauce. For me that means:

Simple
Rustic
Fresh
Exploding with flavor!

If all of this sounds good to you, give my recipe a try. If you want more out of it, this will still make a great base for you to build from!

I mean come on, don’t you want to just eat that? Head over to the recipe for Margarita Pizza to bring these joyful tastes to your kitchen!