This Homemade Pizza Sauce is the perfect addition to your homemade pizza. Easy to make and packed with flavour — once you make this sauce, you'll never resort to store bought again!
Who doesn't love pizza? I love to order pizza every now and then, but I mostly make it at home because NOTHING compares to homemade pizza! My perfect homemade pizza dough topped with this delicious sauce, along with my favourite toppings makes for the perfect pizza!
The Perfect Homemade Pizza Sauce
This sauce is nice and thick. It's the same kind of sauce you put on top of a Chicago style pizza, but I love it so much I had to use it on regular pizzas too! But just because it's called "pizza" sauce, doesn't mean that's all it can be used for. You can use this sauce for dipping breadsticks, topping chicken parm, and more!
Come to think of it, this recipe reminds me of my Homemade Meat Sauce, just without the meat! This is basically a vegetarian friendly sauce you can use in your favourite lasagna or as a spaghetti topping.
Ingredients for the Perfect Pizza Sauce
This sauce requires 15 ingredients — but don't let that scare you away! These are very basic ingredients that you may have on hand already:
Olive Oil and Butter — this is the base of the sauce. The olive oil is used to cook the onions and spices in, and it's the best type of oil you can have in the sauce. The butter just adds some extra flavour to the entire sauce.
Onion — for this recipe, we don't slice or dice the onions, we grate them. Even tho it's an extra pain in the eyes, it's necessary to add a ton of moisture and flavour to the sauce. I used 1 small onion which yielded about ⅓ cup.
Garlic Cloves — a flavour powerhouse that does great things in this sauce!
Spices — oregano, basil, Italian seasoning, onion powder, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper are all used to season the sauce. Although this is supposed to be the base of a pizza, I still wanted it to be full of flavour.
Tomato Sauce and Tomato Paste — Make sure you choose the best-quality canned tomatoes for the most excellent flavour. When adding the tomatoes, I like to add a little bit of water to the can, swirl it around, and pour it into the sauce. I usually do this to clean the jars completely and get every last bit of tomato in the sauce. Even without the extra water the sauce will be watery, so to thicken it up we’re gonna add a can of tomato paste.
Parmesan Cheese — Yup, you heard right. Or read? Either way, we're gonna add a few tablespoons of parmesan cheese to enrich and thicken the sauce! The flavour is very subtle, but it does wonderful things to the sauce.
Sugar — as with all tomato sauces, we add a tiny bit of sugar to give the sauce a little bit of sweetness and mask the acidity in the tomatoes.
Time = Flavour
I know a lot of recipes cater to busy people with their "5 minute sauces", but we're not doing that over here. Simmering is what gives a sauce it's amazing flavour! Luckily, instead of simmering for 2 hours like we do in my meat sauce recipe, we only need to simmer this sauce for 30 minutes. We want all the flavours to develop and meld together. Trust me, the extra time will totally be worth it in the end! The simmering also reduces the water and thickens up the sauce. The best part about this is that you can control how thin or thick you want your sauce to be. Thinner sauce = less time, thicker sauce = more time.
This is enough sauce for about 2-3 large pizzas, or about 3-4 (12-inch) pizzas, depending on how much sauce you like on your pizza. The sauce can be used right away for topping pizzas or stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week or frozen for a few months. To freeze the sauce, allow it to cool completely, then pour it into large re-sealable bags and place in the freezer. Transfer the sauce to the refrigerator to thaw out the night before you plan to make your pizza, then re-heat it on the stove top.
Planning on Making Homemade Pizza? Give these recipes a try!
The Perfect Homemade Pizza Dough
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The Perfect Homemade Pizza Sauce
This Homemade Pizza Sauce is the perfect addition to your homemade pizza. Easy to make and packed with flavour — once you make this sauce, you'll never resort to store bought again!
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- ⅓ cup grated onions (1 small onion)
- 4 garlic cloves, finely minced
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
- 1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
- 3 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon Salt, or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
Instructions
- Add the oil and butter to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter is melted, add the grated onion, minced garlic, oregano, basil, Italian seasoning, onion powder and red pepper flakes, for a little heat (optional). Toss around with a wooden spoon and cook until onions are softened and slightly browned, about 3-5 minutes. Be careful as the garlic can easily burn.
- Once the onions are cooked, add the tomato sauce and tomato paste. Add a little water to the jars, shake a bit and pour into the pot.
- Add parmesan, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir until everything is combined. Turn the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes to reduce the water and enhance the flavour. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasonings to your preference.
Notes
- The sauce can be used right away for topping pizzas or stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week or frozen for a few months. To freeze the sauce, allow it to cool completely, then pour it into large re-sealable bags and place in the freezer. Transfer the sauce to the refrigerator to thaw out the night before you plan to make a pizza, then re-heat it on the stove top.
- This is enough sauce for about 2-3 large pizzas, or about 3-4 (12-inch) pizzas, depending on how much sauce you like on your pizza.
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BON APPÉTIT!
Love, Dedra
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Jill
About to make this and just realized I don’t have an onion. Is there anything I can substitute? This is our favorite sauce too!
Dana Riffo
Just made this sauce for the second time and I will never use anything else!! My family also loves your wings!! Do you have a recipe book for sale?
Dedra | QueensleeAppetit
coming soon!
Cyndi
I have used this recipe several times and can say I will never use anything else! Once you try it you will never use anything else! Delicious!
Gloria
Dedra. I have made your pizza sauce twice now. It's delicious! Have you realized your dream of maybe starting a
bakery or even a restaurant. You definitely have the talent. Rock on!
Dedra | QueensleeAppetit
Thank you so so much, Gloria! It has always been my dream to open up a restaurant and a bakery so this comment totally made my day! I'm glad you enjoyed the sauce 🙂
Christine
Stumbled across your Pizza Sauce recipe yesterday and decided to give it a shot.....long story short, it was a HUGE success!!!!! Everyone loved it! I still have 2 more containers in the freezer now for future pizzas. Love how it makes a triple batch! Thank you for such a great tasting sauce!!!
Chantal
Best ever pizza sauce! I have made this recipe countless times!! 💕
Alex Veilleux
Does it matter what kind of onions?
Dedra | QueensleeAppetit
I recommend using either white or yellow onions.
Rick
I make all kinds of pasta sauces and pizza sauces going to give yours a try tonight. Instead of adding sugar, I like to add a teaspoon or two depending on quantity of baking soda to my sauces To get rid of the acidity. Works great.
Hajara
Hi. Hope ur ok. Can I use mozzarella instead?
Dedra | QueensleeAppetit
Yes, you can 🙂
Ms Dimo
Ms. Dedra,
I couldn't type fast enough to let you know how much I LOVE your "Homemade Perfect Pizza Sauce" recipe! I am making pizza for dinner today and realized I did not have store bought pizza sauce. Thanks to you, I will never buy pizza sauce again! Your recipe is awesome! Delicious! I can't wait to make pizza tonight,
Thank you!! :-))
Dedra | QueensleeAppetit
Ahh thank you so much! This made me very happy <3