I’ve made homemade pizza sauce before but I wanted one that was even thicker and richer because I had some big plans to dip things in it (and by “things” I mean pizzadillas). Dipping sauces have to be really thick or else they won’t hang on to whatever is being dunked in them. But I also love a good, thick pizza sauce on my pizzas. A thick pizza sauce gives all the flavor without making the dough soggy. No watery pizza sauce here, folks!
Ingredients for Pizza Sauce:
To make this super thick and rich pizza sauce, you’ll need the following ingredients:
- Olive Oil & Garlic: Garlic sautéed in olive oil provides a deep base flavor for this pizza sauce.
- Crushed Tomatoes: Canned crushed tomatoes provide the bulk of the volume of the sauce. The crushed texture is smooth enough that you won’t have chunks in your sauce, but still has enough texture to prevent the sauce from being too thin.
- Tomato Paste: A little dollop of tomato paste helps thicken the sauce even further and provides a super concentrated tomato flavor to the sauce. No weak sauce here!
- Seasonings: We keep the seasoning pretty simple with just a little basil, oregano, salt, pepper, and a little sugar to help balance the acidity of the tomatoes. Oh! And a pinch of crushed red pepper too, for a little kick. ;)
How Much Sauce Does This Make?
This homemade pizza sauce recipe makes three cups, which is about 3 large pizzas or 12 dipping portions (or like, six pizza sandwiches). The sauce freezes great so go ahead and freeze some of it and then you won’t have to make a batch the next time you want a pizza!
How to Use Homemade Pizza Sauce
Pizza sauce is great for a lot more than just pizzas! This super thick and rich pizza sauce recipe is my new go-to red sauce. Use it for meatball subs, eggplant or chicken parmesan, or just for dipping breadsticks. It’s a quick, easy, all-purpose red sauce for smothering and dipping. Here are a few other great ways to use your Homemade Pizza Sauce:
How to Store Leftover Pizza Sauce
If this pizza sauce recipe is more sauce than you need for one meal, go ahead and freeze the remainder of the sauce. I suggest using a quart-sized freezer bag. To reheat, just tear away the freezer bag and empty the frozen pizza sauce into a small sauce pot. Reheat over low, stirring often, until it is heated through.
Homemade Pizza Sauce
Servings 3 cupsIngredients
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.26)
- 1 clove garlic, minced ($0.08)
- 1 28oz. can crushed tomatoes ($1.47)
- 1 6oz. can tomato paste ($0.59)
- 1/2 Tbsp sugar ($0.05)
- 3/4 tsp salt ($0.05)
- 1 tsp dried basil ($0.10)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano ($0.05)
- Freshly cracked black pepper ($0.05)
- 1 pinch crushed red pepper (optional) ($0.02)
Instructions
- Add the olive oil and garlic to a sauce pot and cook over medium heat for 1-2 minutes, or just until the garlic is soft and fragrant.
- Add the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, salt, basil, oregano, some freshly cracked pepper (10-15 cranks of a pepper mill), and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Stir to combine.
- Cover the pot, allow the pot to come to a simmer, then reduce the heat to low, and let simmer for 15 minutes minimum, or up to 30 minutes (I often let it simmer as I prepare my pizza dough).
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Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Homemade Pizza Sauce – Step By Step Photos
Sauté one clove of minced garlic (or two if you like things garlicky!) in 2 Tbsp olive oil over medium heat for one to two minutes, or until the garlic is soft and fragrant.
Add one 28oz. can crushed tomatoes, one 6oz. can tomato paste, 1/2 Tbsp sugar, 3/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp dried basil, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, some freshly cracked pepper, and a pinch of red pepper flakes to the sauce pot.
Stir the ingredients together, place a lid on top, then allow it to come up to a simmer. Once simmering, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer for 15 minutes minimum (I sometimes let it simmer longer while I’m preparing the pizza dough and the flavor just gets sweeter and deeper).
As a young adult I worked in a pizza restaurant with the most delicious sauce. Now, at age 51, I’ve been on a mission for many years, decades really, to recreate that sauce. This sauce is very close to what I remember all those years ago. I only had diced tomatoes on hand, so I drained a bit of the liquid and ran the rest of the tomatoes/liquid through the food processor. I added a couple shakes of Aleppo pepper to give it a touch of heat, not too much. This sauce has such a depth of flavor and is thick enough to hold up on a pizza. Absolutely delicious! This is now my go-to sauce…the search is over! Thank you for sharing!
This pizza sauce is both easy and tasty. I am very partial to thick pizza sauces and love the richness that comes from tomato paste. This was so easy to make but the results were so much more. I will definitely make again. Plus it makes enough to use on multiple pizzas. Highly recommend this one.
I’m giving this 5 stars! After moving to the South from CT we can’t find a pizza like we grew up with so now we make our own. This sauce tastes just like what we are used to. Outstanding, will be making it again and again!!! Look out pizza here we come!
Hi this as a easy sauce and not to bad. what I did differently was I caramelize, tomato paste ( Turns brown) to allow its full flavor to develop. This works best if you add it to the pan with a little bit of olive oil along with your herbs and spices after you cook your onions and Basil and oregano and garlic etc. that is when you should add the Paste, .Other wise this was a easy and tasty sauce.
Made this for homemade pizza tonight and it was delicious. Thank you so much! I didn’t have time to cook it ahead of time so I threw my ingredients into the ninja and blended everything together and immediately put it on raw pizza dough and it came out delicious. I tripled the garlic and I didn’t have crushed tomatoes so I used stewed tomatoes and it came out perfect in my ninja.
This was so easy and delicious. I will never buy sauce again.
Yummy sauce for pizza, Its very easy to prepare. Made this yesterday exactly as the recipe is written!. We are in to online food catering. some of your recipes will help us. Thank you for all of your wonderful recipes.
Made the recipe exactly as it is… Came out perfect – just the right texture and taste.
Made this sauce. Used tomato sauce cause it’s all I had. I sautéd extra minced garlic and chopped onions in olive oil first. Then simmered for a while longer cause rolling the pizza dough was intense.
Everyone raves. One person said it was the best pizza she’s tasted I a long time! 😃
This ones a keeper!
I never write recipe reviews but I tried making your pizza sauce tonight and it might be the best pizza sauce I’ve ever had! I used San Marzano tomatoes (28oz can, whole peeled) and lightly blended them before cooking. So simple, inexpensive, and absolutely delicious; Thank you for sharing it!
San Marzano tomatoes are amazing! Great work Dan.
The key was your San Marzano tomatoes. They are awesome for this!!
Great sauce,i added 1 tsp of onion powder.
Great addition Andy!
Amazing recipe. Pizza sauce has been a holy grail for me and has put me off making homemade pizza, but this turned out delicious with a family of hard-to-please palettes in agreement.
Didn’t have crushed tomatoes so used a tin of chopped ones and blended it smooth. Turns out great on a wrap pizza as well.
I made this for our pizza cook off Christmas Eve. We won. It is delicious. I used fire roasted crushed tomatoes.
Congratulations!! That’s awesome!
All recipes should be clear when liting salt as an ingredient. Presumably this recipe is calling for table salt but so many recipes these days are calling for kosher salt (my go-to when cooking sauces, etc.) Table sauce is called that because it’s found on the table, not by the stove. Kosher salt is kept by the stove and is used as an ingredient when cooking, not to season already-cooked dishes.
This was so simple to put together! I let the sauce simmer for the recommended 30 minutes and the flavor was amazing. I used it to make a pizza plus two strombolis with a little extra sauce on the side, so the amount was perfect. I’ll be making a bulk batch to freeze for future meals. Thanks for the recipe!
Love it Crystal! It does freeze well too.
This was so easy to prepare and delicious!! Thank you for this recipe.
Thank you Cheryl!