The best pizza sauce recipe is also the easiest! The best part is, it’s also an authentic Italian (Neapolitan) recipe–so what are you waiting for? Next time you make pizza, this is your recipe!
I am amazed at how many pizza sauce recipes I’ve found that are so complicated, include a laundry list of ingredients (including sugar) and that are nothing like a pizza sauce that I’ve ever seen in Italy!
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Since writing this post, I have joined the Greatest Tomatoes From Europe and I 🖤 San Marzano DOP campaigns, educating and informing consumers about the best quality tomatoes, and what to look for on the cans.
Some recipes take so much time because you have to cook the sauce before putting it on the pizza, but pizza sauce should never be cooked! A few of the photos I’ve seen have scarred me for life: red spackle paste? Please let me help you. (Updated: just read some of the reviews below. This recipe is life-changing!) 😀
Why is this the Best Homemade Pizza Sauce Recipe?
THIS PIZZA SAUCE IS THE BEST BECAUSE IT’S SIMPLE AND USES ONLY TOP QUALITY INGREDIENTS.
That’s the reason, in a nutshell. So who am I to tell you what the best recipe is? I am by no means a pizza making expert. However, my mother was born in Italy (just north of Naples, where pizza was born), and she and her family (6 sisters who are amazing cooks) know how to make an authentic Italian pizza sauce, trust me on that!
I’ve also been traveling to Italy and eating incredibly delicious pizza there since I was a born. If you’re not looking for a really authentic, traditional Neapolitan and classic Italian pizza sauce, this isn’t for you.
For example, there are a few ingredients you will never find in an authentic Italian, and delicious pizza sauce recipe.
How to Select the Ingredients for your Pizza Sauce
Doesn’t this pizza sauce look more appealing than a dark red spackle-type sauce? It’s light, fresh and delicious, like so many other authentic Italian creations! If you don’t like pieces of tomato or seeds, just use a purée or passata which is smooth. (You can also purée whole or chunky tomatoes to make them smooth.)
Looking for a real (easy) Italian spaghetti sauce?
What Ingredients Are Used in the Best Sauce Recipe?
Pizza’s original home is Naples, so why wouldn’t we use the best pizza sauce recipe from there to make your pizza at home? Given that most of us don’t live in Naples, I will share tips on how you can make the best pizza sauce in your home without stressing about following the “rules” to a T.
Did you know that the term Neapolitan means originating in Naples?
According to the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the best pizza sauce recipe includes, but is not limited, to the following:
- TOMATOES: you can use fresh tomatoes, however, for guaranteed quality and taste, try to get your hands on “pomodoro pelato S.Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese-Nocerino D.O.P.” Don’t be scared of that long name, you’ll recognize them as San Marzano tomatoes (but they’re the real deal with the DOP). These are simply the “cream of the crop” of the Greatest Tomatoes from Europe (GTFE).
Of course, you can use any good quality canned tomatoes for great results, including pomodorini (cherry tomatoes) like the photo of the can below. Be careful as to what you consider to be “quality”, so read this post which outlines a few of the brands that you can look for.
- EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL: be sure to use a top quality oil (some are mixed with other oils.)
- CHEESE: grated hard cheese, like authentic Italian Parmigiano Reggiano (sprinkled on the pizza not added to the sauce).
- OREGANO: dried oregano is fine. Fresh herbs are not critical, except for the basil.
- BASIL: fresh basil is best.
- SALT: use a good quality sea salt.
Note: if you want to add hot pepper flakes to the sauce, you can, but in Italy, spicy pizza is called pizza alla diavola, and is topped with a spicy dry cured sausage, more like salami. It’s actually one of my favorite pizzas!
Selecting Ingredients: What to Avoid
Let’s cover the ingredients you should NOT use if you want the best results.
- Inferior quality tomatoes, i.e. tasteless, acidic, and/or sour tomatoes, whether fresh or canned; your pizza will be ruined. Read in more detail about the difference in canned tomatoes from Europe on this fusilli pasta recipe. Most importantly, be aware of cans with the words “San Marzano” that are not DOP or from the special region of Naples (or even Italy)!
- Tomato paste. It simply should never meet pizza dough in any form. Most people do not use tomato paste properly or as it was intended to be used by Italians.
- Sugar. Any type of sweetener is simply unnecessary when you are using top quality, non-acidic, great tasting canned or fresh tomatoes.
- “Italian Seasoning.” This is a non-Italian creation. It simply doesn’t exist in Italy, therefore, belongs in no authentic Italian dish, including pizza.
- Garlic powder or garlic salt. Just no. (No onion or other powders, for that matter.)
Tips for Making this Recipe & Frequently Asked Questions
How is Pizza Sauce Different from Pasta Sauce?
The main difference is that pizza sauce is raw, whereas pasta sauce is cooked. In the region where my mother is from, oregano is for pizza sauce, not pasta sauce. Also, don’t believe for a minute that either one should be “thick” or “heavy.” If you end up with a thick pizza sauce, you’re not making anything remotely Italian.
THIS IS PHOTO IS NOT PIZZA SAUCE, I’m just sharing my authentic (quick) Italian tomato sauce recipe for pasta. Someone mistakenly thought this was a photo of me cooking pizza sauce, so I’m explaining in more detail.
How do you make Italian pizza sauce from scratch?
It’s so easy: source the best ingredients and follow my recipe below! Here’s my original pizza dough recipe which is a no knead, easy overnight dough, but a more authentic and improved pizza dough recipe can be found here.
Can I Make Pizza Sauce Ahead of Time?
Yes, just keep it refrigerated if you don’t plan to use it right away. It will keep in the fridge for two or three days until you’re ready for pizza night! Use it on this no knead pizza dough.
Can I Substitute Tomato Paste for Pizza Sauce?
Absolutely 100% NO! This is the devil’s pizza sauce if you do this! Tomato paste has no place anywhere on a pizza, or in a pizza sauce. I just don’t understand how Italian cuisine has become so misunderstood and disparate in the US and UK (mostly). Tomato paste is used as a thickener when you have really runny tomatoes, or to add some tomato flavor to a soup, but never used as a pizza sauce base, or even in a pizza sauce. The flavor and consistency are the main reasons for not using the paste. Do a taste test if you don’t believe me.
Can I Freeze Pizza Sauce?
Yes! If you plan to keep it longer than two or three days, put the pizza sauce in a freezer proof container and freeze. It should last about a month in the freezer, but try to use it before then.
Baking a Delicious Pizza Using this Recipe
So this is the part we have the least control over in making a really good Italian pizza: the oven. We can always buy a pizza stone, which helps, but the fact that we can’t get an oven temperature of more than 500 degrees Fahrenheit is the biggest problem. Pizza needs a super hot oven upwards of 700 degrees F.
Without buying a professional pizza oven, the next best thing I’ve found is an inexpensive countertop pizza maker. I love mine and it reaches over 600 degrees F! The Petite Pizzeria that I have has been discontinued, but this Chef di Cucina Pizza Maker looks almost exactly the same and gets rave reviews.
My mother and family’s go to pizza sauce is actually what is called a marinara pizza. Somehow, Americans/Brits got mixed up with what marinara sauce is. A marinara pizza sauce includes garlic and oregano, however, for a Margherita pizza, these are omitted.
How to Make this Authentic Italian
Pizza Sauce Recipe
by Christina Conte enough sauce for 4, 10″ pizzas
FULL PRINTABLE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW
(including recommendations for the best products)
What You’ll Need
A medium sized bowl, kitchen shears, and spoon.
Ingredients
- good quality tomatoes, fresh or canned
- good quality extra virgin olive oil
- salt
- fresh Italian basil
- oregano (optional)
- fresh garlic (optional)
- Pour the can of tomatoes into a bowl. If you are using pomodorini or whole tomatoes, crush them with your hands, or you can roughly cut them with kitchen shears. If your tomatoes have a lot of liquid, if you mix them all together, it shouldn’t be too watery. However, if you don’t use an entire can, just leave more of the liquid with the tomatoes you don’t use.
- Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Taste for salt and add if needed. That’s it, the sauce is ready to use!
- (Don’t add too much sauce to the pizza dough; you don’t want to drown it.)
Although this is a “best pizza sauce recipe” post, I want to briefly discuss the toppings. Since the pizza sauce is so tasty on this pizza, you don’t need a ton of toppings. You can have it plain, which is my mother’s favorite pizza. Just go easy on whatever you add: a little fresh mozzarella, some sautéed mushrooms, anchovies, roasted red pepper or pepperoni. You can truly add what you like, just don’t tell me if you add Hawaiian p——-e!
At this point, you may believe me that this is the easiest pizza sauce recipe ever, but you’ll have to taste it to believe that it’s the best. If you try it, please leave a review (see the star rating in the printable recipe card or the WRITE A REVIEW at the bottom next to the comment tab).
(Updated 2/2021: PLEASE READ WHAT READERS HAVE ALREADY WRITTEN
IN BOTH THE COMMENTS AND REVIEWS TABS BELOW!)
I hope this changes your pizza game! Let me know if it does. Ciao!
Don’t miss another post, sign up for my free subscription below.
[…] talking about. You can eat them raw without making a sour face! These are needed in order to make good pizza sauce, too. (For those of you interested, here’s the Parmigiano cheese […]
Christina, Parmesan is listed in one section to add, but not in the actual recipe. Is there a specific amount to add to this recipe?
Ah yes, good eye, John! That was from the Verace Pizza site. Parmigiano is indeed part of the Neopolitan pizza (although my family never used it) and I would imagine it’s a more recent addition, given it comes from Northern Italy. It’s sprinkled on top of the pizza sauce when making the pizza, but not part of the actual sauce. Very little is sprinkled on if you wish to do so. Enjoy!
[…] In fact, when you make pizza the real Italian way, many things will change. For example, did you know that you should never use tomato paste or cook your pizza sauce! Find out how to make proper pizza sauce here. […]
Having an issue with garlic powder but then a few paragraphs later making it perfectly acceptable for a no-knead dough…. Glad to see you are consistent when sticking to those very strict traditional roots.
Sorry if you are this inflexible, Dirk. Everyone has their own standards, and by looking at all of my recipes, you’ll find a range from cucina povera, to things I created myself. I’m not going to expect everyone to make pizza dough in the classic Neapolitan fashion, when people work and have children to care for (especially in lockdown when they have to homeschool them). However, they can surely use fresh garlic instead of powder. I think your lines are a bit crossed in understanding what I’m attempting to do. I want to help people enjoy real food, and no-knead dough is absolutely acceptable in my book. I’m not going to shut people out by being so strict that they give up and buy ready made pizza crusts. Maybe you’ve never tried no knead dough so you don’t know anything about it? Maybe you should broaden your horizons a little.
Great answer
Thank you, Linda.
Idiots in every crowd, Christina knows her stuff.
Thank you
I am LOL. Atta girl! But your sauce is basically what I do for pizza. It’s fresh (ish), DELICIOUS, and light. And I’m finishing up homeschooling with an amazing and autistic 9 year old and a 5 year old. 15 MONTHS OF FUN!!!! Hugs to you, mama.
You deserve a medal, Natasha! Hardest (but most rewarding) job in the world! I homeschooled, too, it’s a LOT of work. Glad you like this pizza sauce, too! Thank you and keep up the good work! CC
Sounds divine! My German Tante Helga married my beloved Onkel Mario..and always bemoaned the fact we did not have good pizza in California..because of the sauce she said lol! I wasn’t sure ..and l know this is a dumb question, , but lest l mess up the recipe, do you drain the whole tomato’s in the can ..and then squish them up?
No, the juice is from the tomatoes, but not a dumb question at all. You definitely can squish them or blend them a little with stick blender, for example and it won’t be nearly as watery then. Enjoy!
I get the san marzano canned tomatoes, add ingredients, blend in the food processor, then dump in a strainer to let mot of the thin liquid drain out to thicken it up. Works well.
I hope you keep that precious liquid to use for something else?
Should you drain the water from the tomatoes before adding them? It was quite a watery sauce and made for a soggy pizza. Maybe if you had a super hot oven that could reach several hundred degrees it would allow that excess moisture to steam off.
Hi Pete, definitely shouldn’t have a soggy pizza. I think you can see from my photos that the sauce isn’t very watery. I have to ask which tomatoes you used and then I can tell you what to do. Could you let me know? Brand and type, thanks!
I believe they were Cento peeled tomatoes. Some of the issue with the wateriness may have been the mozzarella in liquid I used. Reading about it later, I probably should have let the mozzarella drain on a paper towel for a bit.
Christina says:
September 26, 2020 at 11:32 am
I didn’t! So many recipes to publish and my editorial calendar goes with the season (I know, it’s always pizza season!). Going to email you!
Please Christina
Will you email me as well with the link to your latest pizza dough recipe once you have published it on site! Waiting in eager anticipation!
Ciao Christina
I just chanced on this site and was drawn to the comment relating to real Italian pizza topping, and what a revelation, I will be making it the next time that I fire up the pizza oven, and your comments about its simplicity make real sense to me, as the son of an Italian mother, I have inherited my late mother’s recipe books, all written in Italian, so I am having to translate them, unfortunately coming from the Friuli region there is no mention of even making pizza’s, let alone a topping sauce, so your post has filled a void in my personal Italian recipe book, a few years ago I did discover a recipe of my Nonna’s for bread, and I decided to try it, and like your sauce, the ingredients for it are simplicity itself, just flour, yeast, salt, water and the secret ingredient of a flour and water mixture made and fed every day. The bread that it makes is a revelation, and no, it is not sour dough, in fact the recipe title was pane di montagne, and we have never bought store bread for almost 3 years since my discovery, I would love to share it with you if that is possible. Again thank you for the excellent post to which I have now subscribed.
So happy to read your comment, Michael! Happy to help fill that void, and would love to receive the pane di montagne ricetta. Sounds like a type of biga that’s used. Keep those Italian traditions alive, Michael! CC