The Perfect Homemade Pizza Sauce ~ Recipe | Queenslee Appétit (2024)

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This Homemade Pizza Sauce is the perfect addition to your homemade pizza. Easy to make and packed with flavour — once you make this sauce, you'll never resort to store bought again!

The Perfect Homemade Pizza Sauce ~ Recipe | Queenslee Appétit (1)

Who doesn't love pizza? I love to order pizza every now and then, but I mostly make it at home because NOTHING compares to homemade pizza! My perfect homemade pizza dough topped with this delicious sauce, along with my favourite toppings makes for the perfect pizza!

The Perfect Homemade Pizza Sauce ~ Recipe | Queenslee Appétit (2)

The Perfect Homemade Pizza Sauce

This sauce is nice and thick. It's the same kind of sauce you put on top of a Chicago style pizza, but I love it so much I had to use it on regular pizzas too! But just because it's called "pizza" sauce, doesn't mean that's all it can be used for. You can use this sauce for dipping breadsticks, topping chicken parm, and more!

Come to think of it, this recipe reminds me of my Homemade Meat Sauce, just without the meat! This is basically a vegetarian friendly sauce you can use in your favourite lasagna or as a spaghetti topping.

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Ingredients for the Perfect Pizza Sauce

This sauce requires 15 ingredients — but don't let that scare you away! These are very basic ingredients that you may have on hand already:

Olive Oil and Butter — this is the base of the sauce. The olive oil is used to cook the onions and spices in, and it's the best type of oil you can have in the sauce. The butter just adds some extra flavour to the entire sauce.

Onion — for this recipe, we don't slice or dice the onions, we grate them. Even tho it's an extra pain in the eyes, it's necessary to add a ton of moisture and flavour to the sauce. I used 1 small onion which yielded about ⅓ cup.

Garlic Cloves — a flavour powerhouse that does great things in this sauce!

Spices — oregano, basil, Italian seasoning, onion powder, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper are all used to season the sauce. Although this is supposed to be the base of a pizza, I still wanted it to be full of flavour.

Tomato Sauce and Tomato Paste — Make sure you choose the best-quality canned tomatoes for the most excellent flavour. When adding the tomatoes, I like to add a little bit of water to the can, swirl it around, and pour it into the sauce. I usually do this to clean the jars completely and get every last bit of tomato in the sauce. Even without the extra water the sauce will be watery, so to thicken it up we’re gonna add a can of tomato paste.

Parmesan Cheese — Yup, you heard right. Or read? Either way, we're gonna add a few tablespoons of parmesan cheese to enrich and thicken the sauce! The flavour is very subtle, but it does wonderful things to the sauce.

Sugar — as with all tomato sauces, we add a tiny bit of sugar to give the sauce a little bit of sweetness and mask the acidity in the tomatoes.

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Time = Flavour

I know a lot of recipes cater to busy people with their "5 minute sauces", but we're not doing that over here. Simmering is what gives a sauce it's amazing flavour! Luckily, instead of simmering for 2 hours like we do in my meat sauce recipe, we only need to simmer this sauce for 30 minutes. We want all the flavours to develop and meld together. Trust me, the extra time will totally be worth it in the end! The simmering also reduces the water and thickens up the sauce. The best part about this is that you can control how thin or thick you want your sauce to be. Thinner sauce = less time, thicker sauce = more time.

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This is enough sauce for about 2-3 large pizzas, or about 3-4 (12-inch) pizzas, depending on how much sauce you like on your pizza. The sauce can be used right away for topping pizzas or stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week or frozen for a few months. To freeze the sauce, allow it to cool completely, then pour it into large re-sealable bags and place in the freezer. Transfer the sauce to the refrigerator to thaw out the night before you plan to make your pizza, then re-heat it on the stove top.

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Planning on Making Homemade Pizza? Give these recipes a try!

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The Perfect Homemade Pizza Sauce ~ Recipe | Queenslee Appétit (10)

Yield: 2 cups

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

This Homemade Pizza Sauce is the perfect addition to your homemade pizza. Easy to make and packed with flavour — once you make this sauce, you'll never resort to store bought again!

Ingredients

  • 2 Tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • ⅓ cup grated onions (1 small onion)
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely minced
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
  • ¼ teaspoon onion powder
  • ¼-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
  • 1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
  • 1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
  • 3 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
  • ½ teaspoon Salt, or to taste
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

Instructions

  1. Add the oil and butter to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter is melted, add the grated onion, minced garlic, oregano, basil, Italian seasoning, onion powder and red pepper flakes, for a little heat (optional). Toss around with a wooden spoon and cook until onions are softened and slightly browned, about 3-5 minutes. Be careful as the garlic can easily burn.
  2. Once the onions are cooked, add the tomato sauce and tomato paste. Add a little water to the jars, shake a bit and pour into the pot.
  3. Add parmesan, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir until everything is combined. Turn the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes to reduce the water and enhance the flavour. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasonings to your preference.

Notes

  • The sauce can be used right away for topping pizzas or stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week or frozen for a few months. To freeze the sauce, allow it to cool completely, then pour it into large re-sealable bags and place in the freezer. Transfer the sauce to the refrigerator to thaw out the night before you plan to make a pizza, then re-heat it on the stove top.
  • This is enough sauce for about 2-3 large pizzas, or about 3-4 (12-inch) pizzas, depending on how much sauce you like on your pizza.

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FAQs

What gives pizza sauce its distinctive flavor? ›

Traditional pizza sauce is made with a base of tomatoes and spices like garlic, onion, basil, and oregano. You might think that this makes a pizza simple or boring, but this isn't the case. There are so many varieties and recipes for it that you'll never get bored of this meal!

How to make homemade pizza taste like real pizza? ›

3 Steps for Better Homemade Pizza
  1. Make your own dough. Mix it up in the morning (or the night before) and it will be waiting for you come dinnertime.
  2. Keep the sauce and toppings simple. A simple, no-cook red sauce is best. ...
  3. Bake it hot. Crank the oven to its highest setting and let it heat for at least half an hour.

What can I add to my pizza sauce to make it taste better? ›

Extra virgin olive oil: This type of olive oil has the most flavor but if standard olive oil is what you've got that will work too. Garlic: The fresh garlic used here adds so much flavor to the sauce. If you want a more mild garlic flavor you can reduce to 1 tsp. Tomato paste: A crucial ingredient.

What are the best tomatoes for pizza sauce? ›

SUMMARY – San Marzano are the tomatoes by excellence for classic red sauce pizza. Some other varieties include the Pomodorino del Piennolo- yellow or red. If San Marzano is impossible to find where you live, oblong peeled tomatoes are the best next choice.

What seasoning makes pizza taste better? ›

Popular Seasonings and Herbs to Add to Pizza
  1. Parmesan Cheese. Parmesan cheese is a hard cheese that can be grated, shredded or shaved over the top of pizza after it has finished baking. ...
  2. Italian Seasoning. ...
  3. Oregano. ...
  4. Garlic. ...
  5. Red Pepper Flakes. ...
  6. Parsley. ...
  7. Basil. ...
  8. Thyme.
Apr 21, 2023

Why does restaurant pizza taste better than homemade? ›

The No. 1 reason restaurant pizza is better than homemade is that they have ovens that can reach 900°F, or even hotter, which makes for perfectly crisp and chewy crusts, with those lovely charred spots, says Kierin Baldwin, chef-instructor of Pastry & Baking Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education.

What is the key to a good pizza? ›

The top chefs all agree that the best pizzas are all about the crust, so salt in the dough should never be sacrificed at the altar of salty toppings. “Building a pizza is like building anything else – you have to make compromises and consider the whole when choosing the parts.

What sauce is most used on pizza? ›

Tomato ketchup is one of the most common sauces that are used to boost up the taste of a pie. This pleasingly viscous, tomato sauce is luxurious and also offers a rustic flavor to your pizza.

What is the best cheese to use for homemade pizza? ›

Best cheese for pizza
  • Mozzarella. Perhaps the most well-known and popular pizza topping of all-time, Mozzarella is cherished for its near perfect consistency and straightforward flavour. ...
  • Cheddar/Matured Cheddar. ...
  • Aged Havarti. ...
  • Gorgonzola. ...
  • Provolone. ...
  • Goat cheese. ...
  • Pecorino-Romano. ...
  • The ultimate cheese pizza.

Why do you put baking soda in pizza sauce? ›

The baking soda is supposed to mellow out the sauce a little bit, make it less acidic, and possibly prevent heartburn.

What gives pizza its umami or makes it irresistible? ›

Umami, which is used as both an adjective and a noun, is a taste sensation produced by naturally occurring glutamate, an amino acid that's often found in meat and some vegetables. Pizza contains a large amount of glutamate.

Why does pizza sauce taste different from spaghetti sauce? ›

Quite simply, pizza sauce has a lot fresher, more raw taste than pasta sauce. This is because pizza sauce is barely cooked (sometimes not cooked at all), whereas pasta sauce is slow-simmered for hours to develop richness.

What is pizza flavoring made of? ›

You can buy pizza dough flavoring from a number of different spice and baking supply companies. It's a combination of what are generally thought of as Italian herbs and spices -- things like garlic, oragano, basil, and the like.

Why is my pizza sauce bland? ›

Finally, remember that the quality of your ingredients will impact the taste of your pizza sauce. Use high-quality San Marzano tomatoes for the best possible flavor, and don't skimp on the garlic or olive oil. Fresh herbs like basil or thyme can also add a nice touch of flavor to your pizza sauce.

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