Bring your pizza game to the next level!
All great pizzas are judged by their sauce (there's probably a law about that or something). Few things are more disappointing than biting into a pizza with a weak, watery sauce. No matter how perfect your topping combinations are and how much parmesan that you dust the top of the pie with, a weak sauce wrecks the experience.
Thankfully, this recipe will prevent you from ever having to deal with that again. You can use this to make a delicious, chunky pizza sauce that will stay tasty in the refrigerator for a while. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 Can of crushed San Marzano tomatoes
- Half of one white onion
- Garlic cloves
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Bay Leaves
- Honey, ideally fresh
- Red pepper flake
- Salt and pepper
- Oregano
- (OPTIONAL) 1 Parmesan rind
- (OPTIONAL) Tomato paste
- (OPTIONAL) Sprig of basil
Preparation
Start by finely mincing one half of a white onion while bringing a splash of olive oil up to a light simmer in a saucepan. If you don't have a designated saucepan, this works fine in any high-walled pan. Toss in the onions and let them cook, agitating every couple of seconds. After the onions are nice and fragrant, add in a few cloves of crushed garlic. However much garlic you want to add depends on personal preference, but science has concluded that there's no such thing as too much.
This garlic will burn quickly, so make sure to keep it moving while it cooks. After about 30 seconds, add your can of San Marzano tomatoes and reduce to the heat to low. After a few minutes, the tomatoes will soften, and break them up with a wooden spoon. If you like big tomato chunks in your sauce, you only need to break it up a little.
Cooking
The key to good tomato sauce is to cook it low and slow. After you've reduced the heat, toss in a bay leaf along with adding a tablespoon each of oregano, red pepper flake, and honey. Make sure to add them separately and stir to incorporate between each one. Finish up with a dash of salt and pepper to taste. Also make sure not to accidentally break up your bay leaf. You'll want to fish it out before you serve.
For extra flavor, toss in a parmesan rind and sprig of fresh basil along with a dollop of tomato paste. These will imbue your sauce with some delightfully rich flavors, but they are optional if you're not looking for a super-strong sauce. Either way, make sure to retrieve your basil and rind along with the bay leaf when finished cooking.
Let the sauce simmer for 1-2 hours, depending on how deep you want the flavors. Longer cook times will cook off some moisture and give you a chunkier sauce as well. Once the sauce is where you like it, kill the heat, sauce your dough, and store any remaining sauce in an airtight container for future pizza use.
As soon as you decide to annihilate the roof of your mouth with that first bite of piping hot pizza, you'll taste the difference.
