This simple pizza sauce is astoundingly easy and inexpensive yet tastes complex. Definitely a keeper according to everyone who’s slathered it over pizza dough and slid it in the oven.
Simple Pizza Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
In a small skillet over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Be careful not to let the garlic scorch or the resulting sauce will be bitter.
In a nonreactive bowl, stir together the garlic and its oil along with the tomatoes and their juices, the dried basil, dried oregano, dried thyme, pepper, water, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of the vinegar. Taste and season with salt and additional vinegar as desired.
Canned tomatoes vary in salt content, so season the sauce with just a pinch of salt to start, and then gradually add more to taste. When seasoning with the red wine vinegar, add just enough to make the flavor really sparkle; the sauce shouldn’t taste tangy.
Use the sauce right away or cover and refrigerate it for up to 1 week. Originally published April 16, 2012.
Recipe Testers Reviews
How can something so simple be so good? And how can a tomato sauce be so good when it’s not cooked at all? The answer to both of these riveting questions is, “Because it is.” Make this and taste it. Of course, you need to use top-quality canned crushed tomatoes. I waited to decide whether to add the water to the sauce until after I tasted it. After tasting the sauce, I didn’t add the water. I wanted the full-on tomato taste.
I could eat this sauce on its own with a spoon. Actually, I did. I made a double batch of this sauce. We used it for pizzas and also to dress a batch of meatballs that I made a couple days later. This sauce is a winner.
I put it on some pizza and it was delicious...pizza itself was a hot mess but that wasn't the sauce's fault! Looking forward to using it on my regular no-fail method (naan, sauce, cheese...no judgement, please).
HUNGRY FOR MORE?
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #LeitesCulinaria. We'd love to see your creations on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
I’ve recently “discovered” passata. I think it makes a better pizza sauce than canned tomatoes.
Thanks, Bkhuna! We’ll have to give that a try.
This makes a great pizza sauce. I did not add the water and am glad I didn’t. I think the water would make it too watery. I had enough sauce for 8 pizzas using Jim Lahey’s dough recipe x 2. The sauce kept in the fridge for over a week with no problem. I didn’t have crushed tomatoes but some whole canned tomatoes with basil which I crushed by hand. Definitely easy and worth making again. Yes, who would have thought a no cook sauce would be so good.
Sagar, that’s excellent! I think canned whole tomatoes have more liquid than crushed tomatoes, which is why you thought it would be too watery. But what matters most is you liked it, and it works!