Easy Homemade Pizza Sauce

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This homemade pizza sauce is so easy to make. It only takes two minutes and nine key ingredients. It’s a really fun way to get started for your homemade pizza night, and tastes so much better than store bought pizza sauce!

Pizza Sauce

This flavorful pizza sauce is anything but weak. Like the old-school marinara sauces made by expert cooks in Naples, it’s packed with rich, saucy flavor. The term “marinara” sauce actually refers not to the ingredients, but to the boatloads of hungry sailors (or “marinari”) who would walk from the port in Naples - which remains active to this day - to their favorite pizza joint, demanding only the best pizza they could get. The simple, flavorful red sauce that went on top of the oven baked bread was a quick, tasty way to serve so many hungry sailors, and the name stuck.

How To Make Pizza Sauce from Scratch

It’s easy to make this sauce ahead of time, and it stores really well in the fridge until you’re ready to make pizza.

Simply mix the tomato paste, tomato sauce, your basil, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and sugar until smooth. That’s it!

Once your sauce is made up, it’s time to put together your delicious homemade pizza. Use your favorite pizza dough recipe and generously and evenly spread your red sauce over the pizza dough. You want a nice thick layer of the sauce atop the pizza. Don’t skimp on sauce! That’s where the flavor is.

Homemade Pizza Sauce Serving Size

Our recipe should make enough sauce for three large pizzas or four medium sized pizzas. Of course, if you’re feeding more people, simply double the quantities in the recipe to get a yield for four large pizzas.

It’s really easy to double, or even triple, this recipe. If you’re feeding kids, you could even let them make smaller sized personal pizzas, with a correspondingly small amount of sauce, with their choice of toppings. They think it’s great fun.

Storage

You can easily store or freeze this pizza sauce. A glass jar with a lid should do the trick quite nicely. It will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks. You could also freeze the sauce, and it will keep in the freezer for up to three months.

When you want to use the sauce, allow it to return to room temperature before applying it to your dough. You can thaw the sauce overnight in the fridge if it is frozen.

Homemade Pizza Sauce FAQs

What’s the difference between pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce?

Spaghetti sauce typically has a higher water content. It needs to coat strands of pasta, so it’s less viscous than a pizza sauce should be. That’s why you should avoid using jarred marinara sauce, which is intended for use with pasta.
Pizza sauce is thicker and denser than most pasta sauces.
Spaghetti sauce also varies quite a bit, according to the ingredients used in preparation. Your pizza sauce, because it is denser and thicker, will probably have a stronger, fuller flavor than most spaghetti sauces.

Should homemade pizza sauce be cooked?

You don’t need to cook this pizza sauce recipe, as it will endure high heat as the pizza itself cooks.

Can I use ketchup as pizza sauce?

No.
Ketchup is not pizza sauce. It is not pasta sauce. Do not use it as a substitute for tomatoes or either sauce.

Homemade Pizza Sauce Substitutions

If you run out of tomato sauce, you can simply blend a can of tomatoes - especially diced tomatoes - in a food processor. You could also blend fresh tomatoes.
It will take a little longer, but you could try roasting tomatoes in the oven for 20 minutes, then blending the roasted tomatoes. It’s a great, fresh flavor.
You can’t really substitute the tomato paste in this recipe, as that is critical to the texture of the pizza sauce.
You can use fresh spices in place of dried spices if you have access to them. Basil, or Italian seasoning, are great for this recipe, and if you have access to a fresh sprig of oregano or basil it will make your sauce taste great. If you want your sauce to have a less bold flavor, start with less seasoning and add more as you go.
You can leave the granulated sugar out if you want a sugar free sauce. You could substitute it for honey or a tiny pinch of cinnamon, which is commonly done in Sicily.
This sauce is already vegan, so you don’t need to make any substitutions or alterations to make it into a vegan alternative. You can make yourself some pretty incredible vegan pizzas if you want using this sauce and the right ingredients.

More Pizza Recipes

Air Fryer Frozen Pizza

Pizza Napoletana

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Pizza Dough Recipe

Thin Crust Pizza Dough

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