Homemade Pizza Sauce for Pizza Night

View my best homemade pizza sauce recipe web story here.

Homemade Pizza Sauce, at a Glance

✅Skill Level: Beginner
✅Skills: Infusing oil, sweating onions, simmering
✅Type: Pizza sauce
✅Number of Ingredients: 12
✅Prep Time: 5 minutes
✅Cook Time: 30 minutes
✅Yield: 3 cups, enough for 6 12″ pizzas

Jump Straight to the Recipe

Why You Need to Make This Pizza Sauce

I am generally a proponent of fresh pasta sauce: a few ingredients stirred together, uncooked, that cook and intensify while the pizza bakes.

This type of sauce works really well for something like Sicilian, Detroit, or other deep-dish pizzas.

But for a thin-crust pizza that generally cooks in under 10 minutes, a cooked sauce is the way to go.

This sauce is a great option because it is well-balanced, it’s intensely flavored, and it’s simmered long enough that much of the liquid evaporates.

Reducing the amount of liquid in a sauce intensifies the flavors, which is always a good thing. It also keeps your crust from getting soggy, which is also a good thing.

This is an easy pizza sauce you can make with all pantry staples, so you most likely already have most everything on hand that you’ll need.

How To Make It

First, we’ll look at ingredients as well as substitutions.

Then, I’ll walk you through the steps to make the sauce, give you some equipment recommendations, and also provide some ways to vary the sauce to your taste.

Ingredients and Substitutions

Here’s what you’ll need to make it:

• Olive oil: Carries flavor and adds some richness and silkiness to the sauce. It also is the medium for frying the base flavors. For a smoky layer of flavor, use bacon fat instead of olive oil.
• Pepper flake: Brings a little heat. Use more or less, or leave it out entirely if you prefer
• Salt and pepper: Salt brings out all the flavors, counteracts any bitterness from the tomatoes, and brings dimension to your pizza sauce. I am a fan of the pungency of black pepper. If you are too, go heavy on it. If not, you can leave it out.
• Italian seasoning: Is it authentically Italian? No. No it’s not. But it is easy to find and is generally delicious. If you don’t have Italian seasoning or don’t want to use it, use dried oregano, thyme, and a few leaves of fresh basil
• Onion: Use sweet onion, white onion, or yellow onions. I call for 1/2 a medium onion, which is entirely dependent on what you think a medium onion looks like. Don’t lose any sleep over it, though. If you think your onion is super big, just use 1/4 of it. If all you have is onion powder, use that. Maybe 1-1 1/2 teaspoons
• Garlic: I used pre-minced because I had some, and I am a little lazy. Feel free to use fresh, and use as much as you would like. I used about 3 cloves worth. Use garlic powder if you’d like or if that’s what you have. 1/2-1 teaspoon
• Tomato paste: Adds intense tomato flavor. It also caramelizes a little during the cooking process, bringing extra depth of flavor to your sauce.
• Canned whole tomatoes: Canned plum or San Marzano is preferred, but there is no reason not to use what you have, whether diced, crushed or whole. You’ll need 1 large can (28 oz). Only use fresh tomatoes if they are very ripe and in season, and blanch them so you can slip the skins off before adding to your sauce
• Red wine vinegar: Brightens the flavor and brings a little “sparkle” to your sauce. Substitute any vinegar: apple cider, white wine vinegar, etc. If you like your sauce to be a bit on the sweeter side, use balsamic vinegar
• Ground fennel (optional): This is not a usual ingredient found in pizza sauce, but stick with me. Fennel is one of the flavorings used in Italian sausage. I consider it the defining flavor, and I love it. So I use a bit of ground fennel in my sauce to bring a bit of “sausage-i-ness.” It also lifts the flavor a bit. It’s kind of hard to describe, but it is just so good. As an aside, I also sprinkle any pizza, either homemade, store-bought, or frozen, with some ground fennel to finish before serving.
• Hot Honey: This is a newer addition to my recipe, and it’s a great way to bring a bit of sweet/tang/zing all at the same time. So good!

Procedure

The procedure for making this recipe is fairly straightforward.

Technically, you could put everything in a pot, boil it for 30 minutes or so, and be done.

But with a couple of extra steps, you’ll be able to bring as much flavor to this intensely tomato-y sauce as possible.

Here’s how it goes:

1. Let pepper flake infuse the oil for 30 seconds or so.
2. Add onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. Cook for 3-4 minutes until onions start to soften.
3. Add tomato paste, stir it in well, and then let everything “fry” in the oil for a minute or so. This will caramelize the tomato sauce and bring a ton of extra flavor to your sauce.
4. Add the tomatoes and vinegar. Break up tomatoes with a meat chopper, spoon, or spatula.
5. Stir in the ground fennel, and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the sauce is nice and thick.

Note that your sauce is thick enough when you can mound it up on a wooden spoon. It should not be runny but rather thick and a little “gloppy.”

Equipment You May Need

Other than a heavy-bottomed saucepan and a spoon for storing, you really don’t need a lot of specialized equipment.

I do like to use my meat chopper for breaking up the tomatoes into a chunky sauce.

For a smoother sauce, you could pulse it in a food processor or run it through a food mill on the coarse or medium disc.

Tips for Success

Take the time to fry the tomato paste in olive oil. It brings a whole extra layer of flavor to your pizza sauce that you wouldn’t otherwise get.

Don’t rush cooking the sauce. Simmer until it is is fairly thick. Otherwise, your pizza could end up soggy. So if yours still seems a little thin after 20 minutes, keep simmering until it is nice and thick.

Add the red wine vinegar to the empty tomato can rather than to the pot. Then, swirl the vinegar around in the can to get all the tomato sauce of the sides, then pour that into your pot.

Homemade Pizza Sauce Q & A

Serving Suggestions

The most obvious use of this sauce is to make a pizza, y’all. Or multiple pizzas.

You could use it as a sauce for my lasagna pizza or slather it on grandma pizza dough before adding your toppings.

It is also a great dipping sauce for fried mozzarella sticks or polenta fries, or serve it alongside (or spread on top of spaghetti pie.

Add some easy, weeknight meatballs and serve this as spaghetti and meatballs (you may need to add some pasta cooking water to the sauce to thin it a bit) or dunk some air fryer mushrooms.

Questions

If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.

Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask question in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.

If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.

A Note About Measurements

My recipes are almost all written by weight, including liquids, unless otherwise specified.

For accuracy and consistency of results, I encourage you to buy–and use–a kitchen scale.

I promise that baking and cleanup will be so much quicker and easier.

This is the scale that I recommend for home use. I have owned and used one for years.

Did You Make This? Please Leave a Rating and Review!

Thanks for spending some time with me today.

I hope you enjoy your next pizza night. You’re gonna wow everyone with your homemade pizza sauce!

Take care, y’all.