Pizza Sauce Recipes



Pizza : Thin Crust Dough - Info
Category Dough
Servings 12'' Pizza (2-4)
Preparation 20 Minutes
Cooking Time 8-12 Minutes
Difficulty Easy-Medium

The science of pizza sauce recipes is unfortunately subject to as many variables as finding the best pizza dough recipe. Making homemade pizzas of the quality served in pizzerias is possible, but you need to do a little experimenting to adapt recipes to your taste. No pizza sauce recipe is written in stone, use your imagination. Pizza sauces should be fun and are the perfect food to experiment with.
Making a homemade pizza means that you know exactly what went into it, you have control over your diet because you can be sure that there are no additives or preservatives. Learning how to make pizza sauce will save you money and you'll be in control of the nutrients your family eats.
For healthy eating the best pizza sauce recipe is a simple low fat tomato sauce, topped with vegetables and fish. The cream and butter laden sauces, such as Alfredo sauce should not be eaten regularly if you want your food to be heart friendly.

Cooked vs. Uncooked Pizza Sauce

Whether to use a cooked pizza sauce or an uncooked pizza sauce is a matter of personal preference. A cooked sauce has been reduced and if used hot may make the cheese melt before the base pizza dough is cooked. Both options have their benefits. One of the clear advantages of a cooked sauce is if it is winter and you have no fresh herbs, the cooked sauce absorbs the taste of dried herbs.
You can save your cooked pizza sauce in ice trays and then bag them up in a plastic bag, so you'll have a homemade pizza sauce ready in a portion that you are going to use.
If you don't have enough time to make a homemade pizza sauce then use an uncooked pizza sauce: buy concentrated tomato paste or liquidized tomato usually sold Italian style as passatta. All you need to do is spread it on the pizza dough.
Modern chefs are adapting pizza to combine the raw and the cooked sauces. See this recipe for Prosciutto, Herb & Rocket Pizza.

Oil, Herbs & Spices

Herbs and spices are used to enhance the flavor of your sauce. The most common herbs used in pizza sauce are oregano, basil, thyme, sage, marjoram, savory and mint. Oregano is the most popular spice in pizza sauce.
An easy way to spice your sauce is by adding infused olive oil. The bottle will keep for ages in the fridge and it can be put directly on the pizza base of either the raw dough or the precooked pizza.
South Western sauce is olive oil with garlic, oregano, cummin and black pepper.
     Recipe for South Western Oil Sauce.

Californian oil sauce: olive oil infused with garlic, pepper, oregano, parsley, basil, marjoram and chili
     flakes.
     Recipe for Californian Oil Sauce.

Garlic oil is also very useful and can be made by infusing olive oil with garlic.
     Recipe for Garlic Oil Sauce.
An oil infusion that is good with chicken pizza is tarragon oil.

Canning Pizza Sauce

Canning Pizza Sauce preserves the sauce for use at any time of the year. It utilizes fresh simmer tomatoes when they are cheap and plentiful. The advantage that canning pizza sauce has over freezing pizza sauce is that it does not take room in the freezer; the canned pizza sauce can stay in the garage or a barn. The disadvantage of canning a pizza sauce is that it is possible to get bacteria into the finished product. However if you are using boiled jars or use a sterilizing tablet similar for babies' bottles then this risk is minimized.