Homemade Pizza Sauce

Homemade Pizza Sauce - A quick and easy way to make your own pizza sauce!

Today’s recipe is a bit of a repeat here and that’s because this recipe for homemade pizza sauce is one I’ve shared with you before. However when I wrote about how to make your own pizza sauce the last time, it was added in along with a recipe for homemade pizza crust and I gave more time to writing about the crust.

Yes, it seems like making a homemade crust is always a bigger deal for me and I’ll admit it’s not one of my favorite things. I love the ease and convenience of the pre-made crusts and I don’t especially love the rolling and spreading of dough to get it nicely in my pizza pan when making homemade crusts. Homemade pizza crust is something I just never feel much like monkeying around with.

BUT, I do love my homemade pizza sauce!  Since first writing about it a couple years ago, it’s become one of my favorite easy DIY mixtures. There’s only a couple spices to add and it goes together fast. I may still buy the pre-made crusts most of the time, but I love being able to add my own sauce and all my own toppings. I love being able to use up my odds and ends of fresh veggies on my pizzas and we really enjoy the variety of combinations we can make at home with this approach that we can’t get with frozen or take-out pizza.

Homemade Pizza Sauce - A quick and easy way to make your own pizza sauce!

So for us, this semi-homemade approach to pizza is currently working the best. Buy the crust but make the sauce. And then have lots of fun loading it up with the toppings of our choice!

And that’s why today the homemade pizza sauce is getting a little extra love from me and I’m sharing the recipe a second time. 🙂

Homemade Pizza Sauce - A quick and easy way to make your own pizza sauce!

Homemade Pizza Sauce

A simple homemade pizza sauce that's easy to make using tomato sauce, tomato paste, and a few pantry spices.
Author: TheMakeYourOwnZone.com

Ingredients:

  • 8 oz can Tomato Sauce
  • 1/2 of a 6 oz can Tomato Paste
  • 1/4 tsp Brown Sugar
  • 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
  • 2 tsp Italian Seasoning
  • Pinch Red Pepper Flakes

Instructions:

  • Combine the can of tomato sauce and half of the can of tomato paste in a mixing bowl.
  • Stir in the brown sugar and spices.
  •  This sauce tastes the best if you can let it set for an hour or so before using it to let the flavors mingle. You can use it right away if you need to and it will still taste good, but you get the best flavor quality if you can make it just a bit ahead of time.
  • To use:  Spread on pizza crust and top with your favorite toppings, and bake as needed.  This recipes makes enough for two 12" pizzas.

 

This is a pretty simple recipe to stir together, but here are a few additional notes you might find helpful too:

~ This sauce tastes the best if you can let it set for an hour or so before using it to let the flavors mingle. You can use it right away if you need to and it will still taste good, but you get the best flavor quality if you can make it just a bit ahead of time.

~ Yes, there’s that pesky half a can of tomato paste in this recipe!  (If that bugs you, you may like this poem). However I’ve found that you can freeze that remaining half of the can with no problems.  It thaws just fine and you can then use it in the next batch of homemade pizza sauce you whip up.

~ If you don’t have a bottle of Italian seasoning blend in the house, it’s easy to make your own Italian Seasoning Blend from spices that might be in your cupboard already, or use some combination of the spices in my homemade blend to improvise if you need to.  The 1/4 teaspoon of brown sugar in the recipe is to help offset the acidity of the tomato flavor.

~ This recipe makes enough for two 12″ pizzas. We often just make one pizza at a time I’ve found that the remaining portion of the sauce freezes well.  I put it in a little plastic storage container, label it, pop it in the freezer, and it’s ready for the next pizza we make.  It thaws well in the microwave too.

This “buy the crust, make the sauce” approach reminded me of a book I read a few years back titled “Make The Bread, Buy The Butter”.  This book looks at this very same concept that the DIY crowd so often has to deal with. When is homemade worth the effort and when is it not? Is it worth it because of the flavor? Because of the cost savings? Are you wasting time on the homemade version?

Ultimately most of us have to answer those questions for ourselves because each of us has different tastes and preferences and different home situations. What makes sense for one person might not make sense for another. And if a homemade version isn’t right for our current situation, we shouldn’t weigh ourselves down with guilt over it either.

Homemade Pizza Sauce - A quick and easy way to make your own pizza sauce!

And that’s why for now, we’re going to buy the pizza crust but make the pizza sauce. I so often feel like I waste too much time and effort on the homemade crust for a final product that we just aren’t that enthused about.  Maybe someday that will change. But for now, our Buy The Crust/Make The Sauce strategy is working and that’s OK too.

To see a review of the book mentioned above (July, 2015) and to see more of my favorite books, click here: Favorite Books Resource Page.

 

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