Tomato sauce
The best pizza sauce is never cooked. It is mixed cold and baked on the pizza. Five minutes and done.
Real pizza sauce is made from good-quality crushed tomatoes, salt, olive oil and a little basil. No cooking needed. The sauce cooks on the pizza in the oven anyway. Cooked sauces with lots of seasoning taste more like ketchup than pizza.
Ingredients
- 800 g crushed tomatoes or whole San Marzano tomatoes
- 8 g salt (1% of the tomato weight)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- A few fresh basil leaves
- A small pinch of oregano if you like it
How to make it
- 1
Pour the tomatoes into a bowl. Whole tomatoes? Crush them by hand, not in a blender. A blender makes the sauce foamy and bitter from the seeds.
- 2
Add the salt and olive oil.
- 3
Tear in the basil.
- 4
Stir. Done. Taste it. It should taste of tomato, not spices.
- 5
Spread a thin layer on the pizza, about 70 to 80 grams. Too much sauce makes the base wet.
Good to know
- The quality of the tomatoes is the whole sauce. Buy the best crushed tomatoes you can find.
- The sauce keeps for 4 to 5 days in the fridge in a sealed container.
- Always taste new tomato brands. Some need a pinch of sugar to balance the acidity.
Common questions
Why should the sauce not be cooked?
The sauce cooks on the pizza in very high heat. That is its cooking. If you cook it first, it loses freshness and tastes like the tin. Uncooked sauce gives the tomato flavour real pizzerias want.
Do the tomatoes have to be San Marzano?
No. They are fantastic but expensive. Good Italian crushed tomatoes from the wholesaler work extremely well. Test a few brands and choose the one that tastes most like tomato.
Can I use tomato puree?
No, not as the base. Puree is cooked and concentrated, so it tastes completely different. Crushed tomatoes are just as cheap and much better.
How much sauce should go on a pizza?
Less than most people think: 70 to 80 grams in a thin, even layer where you can still glimpse the base through it. Too much sauce is the most common beginner mistake. It makes the pizza wet and heavy.