Pass the Sauce

In case you are wondering what to use for sauce on your pizza, I give you my semi-homemade recipe that I use every time. I do not buy a jar of just "pizza sauce." Rather, I buy many jars of other things, mix those together, and call it homemade pizza sauce.

You will need:

• 1 can of tomato paste
• 1 jar of marinara or other pasta sauce
• 1 cup of red wine, more or less

These were most certainly on sale. Or I had coupons.

Oh look. I found a leftover bottle of chianti.

Put all of those ingredients in a pot on the stove, turn the heat on low (sauces like this tend to bubble, splash, and stain things), and stir it all together to mix it. You may need to use a whisk to break apart the tomato paste. Heat it until it's just a bit bubbly (not boiling), and keep it at that temperature for about 10-15 minutes. Be sure you do keep the heat very low and stir it occasionally - burnt sauce on the bottom of the pot is the worst!

Options for sauce variations:

• Add 1 can of diced tomatoes to the sauce mix. Lots of marinara and pasta sauces already have chunks of tomatoes and veggies in them, but if you want to make it even chunkier with the tomatoes then add these on in there. 
• Add some spices. Again, many of those jarred sauces are already seasoned, so choose spices that will compliment that. Some recommendations: Herbs de Provence, garlic, basil, oregano, parsley, cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, white pepper, and onion powder.

I was feeling chunky with this batch, so I put some diced tomatoes right in the mix.

Before I really got into pizza making, I thought that tomato paste alone would be suitable as sauce. That could not be farther from the truth. It literally felt like eating craft paste that was heavily flavored like tomatoes. It's a good thing I didn't just stop then and there in the pizza adventure - that would mean this blog would never have been born, or it would really suck.

I know that you can make sauce that's even more from scratch than this, but do try this one if you're looking for something that's pretty simple to put together and always tasty.

A note about the red wine too...definitely use it! It adds that tasty goodness that is hard to describe but you miss it when it's gone. You don't have to use an entire cup, but at least add a splash. Also, it doesn't have to be super fancy, expensive wine. Just something that's tasty that you would have a glass of during dinner.

This recipe is going to give you a lot of sauce. More than enough to cover two pizzas, probably even three. If you're planning on cranking out a bunch of pizzas in  the next few days, you can store leftovers in the fridge (preferably in a glass container...plastic tends to stain). If it's going to be a week or more until the next pizza, I like to pour the leftovers into ice cube trays, freeze those, and store them in an airtight bag for a few weeks. That way, re-heating is a cinch. Just pop about 10-15 cubes into a pot, heat it till they melt, and you've got enough for just one pizza!

Definitely not ice in those trays.

You can store it for a couple months in the freezer, but in my house it would never last that long. I just love it and want to eat it too soon.

Selection of sauce cubes, about to melt down and heat up for a pizza.