Who the heck doesn't love pizza? There must be some of you out there, but I'm pretty sure that pizza is one of the most versatile, universally-loved food out there. You can get the down-home, crowd-pleasing Chicago deep dish supreme or a fancy-schmancy thin-crusted Italian Margherita.I've been married for 7 years and have spent the better part of that time trying to perfect homemade pizza. No matter what I did, it always came out a little doughy and underdone with a weird aftertaste and it would take me straight back to horrible flashbacks of homemade pizza made from a boxed mix when I was a kid. I guess I can get how people hate pizza, especially homemade pizza, if that's all they've ever known.
About a year ago, I finally got it right. The sauce, too. This week, we'll be doing the first of two homemade pizza cooking classes. Think of this as Pizza 101--the basics; versatile sauce, versatile crust, baked in an oven. In a few weeks, we'll follow up with something a little more advanced.
There are lots of recipes for pizza sauce out there, but most of them are pretty work intensive. Quite honestly, if I'm going through the trouble to make homemade pizza, I don't want to have to cook the sauce, too. Also, a lot of them are chunky and I don't like chunky pizza sauce. And a lot of them are cooked with quite a bit of oil, so when you add the cheese, the pizza is all heavy and greasy.
I like this recipe because in addition to being super-yummy, it comes together in just a few minutes and uses ingredients you'll probably have in your cupboard, anyway. Also, it's a great dipping sauce for breadsticks! Ready, Freddy?
Pizza Sauce
print recipe text only
1 6-oz. can tomato paste
6 oz. water (just use the empty tomato paste can)
3 Tbsp. garlic bread seasoning
1 Tbsp. sugar or honey (I usually use sugar because it's easier and hey, I think we've established here that if there's an easy road or a hard road, I usually take the easy road...)
3/4 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)
Empty tomato paste into a bowl and add water a few tablespoons at a time, stirring constantly until combined. Add remaining ingredients, stir to combine, and allow to stand until ready to use. Covers two average-sized pizza; freezes extremely well.
Try it on BBQ Grilled Pizza or a classic Oven Baked one
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mmm...pizza.
That's all I wanted to say :)
I think I'll try the recipe, but I have a question. Why use tomato paste instead of tomato sauce? Here, I've been using sauce this whole time....
Jen, you can use tomato sauce, you just need 12 ounces, which is a weird measurement for tomato sauce. Also, with the tomato paste, you can adjust the water if you need to--some people like it a little thicker and some people add a little more because they like it runnier.
Anyway, let us know how it turns out! :)
Oh i am so excited for this week. Are you going to teach us all how to grill the pizza?
You bet Alisa, I'll be doing a cooking class on grilled pizza soon!
Oh this is going to make the male pizza addicts of my household sooooo happy! YAY for pizza!
I've been working on my homemade pizzas for the last few months. I've had great success with the pre-made dough and pizza sauce from Trader Joes. My best pizza was this past Friday night - sauceless. It was caramelized onions, arugula, fig and goat cheese with a drizzle of unfiltered olive oil...so good!
SO-I made this sauce with your breadsticks and the garlic seasoning (even made some cinnamon-sugary) Very Good! Thanks for all the great recipes. Love it.
One Food Guy-
when I used to live by a Trader Joes I would buy their pizza dough a lot- love it! I also love sauceless pizza. I often do it sauceless when I cook it on the grill. It's kind of ironic, because on oven pizza, I prefer extra sauce! Anyway, Yours looks delish :)
oops, that dailybite comment was me. I always forget to log in as myself!
Wow this sounds great! And so easy. You ARE the best.
Made this the other day and my Hubby thought it was great and my best homemade pizza yet.
I must admit I never make my own pizza sauce. I always have some sort of jarred marinara and I always end up using that. However last night I was out of sauce so I whipped this up and we LOVED it. I think I'll be making it from now on! So simple and easy and we really liked a kick from the red pepper flakes.
Wow wow wow!! The sauce is SO GOOD! I'm enjoying it on my homemade pizza right this minutes. Bye bye jarred and canned sauce. This is so stinkin' easy and sooooo flavorful. LOVE IT! Thank you so much for the recipe. I found it on foodgawker.
I have not yet read all of your blogs. Of the ones I have read so far, this is the only one I disagree with. Pizza sauce should be raw.
This is my new pizza bible. http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm
If you take the time to read the whole thing I would just love to hear your thoughts on this guys work.
Wow we loved this sauce. We made pizzas last night and we loved them. We had leftover pizza today and I think that I loved the pizzas even more. I love this sauce. It is now what we will use every time we make pizza. Thank you so much. I am loving the recipes from this blog and I love making something new to eat.
Made this sauce last night and it was sooo good! Actually it was great! Thank you so much! Looking forward to trying out the rest of your recipes!
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