Recipe for Italian Pizza Sauce

Last updated on November 12th, 2023 at 06:55 pm

If you are here is to learn how to prepare a real recipe for Italian pizza sauce. Actually you will learn two pizza sauce recipes plus a bonus. One sauce for Neapolitan style pizza and another one for pizza in sheet tray (or pizza in pan). The latter is coming directly from my grandma traditions. Are you ready?

When I started to write this article I had something specific in mind. I wanted to share an easy recipe for pizza sauce. However I also wanted to stick on traditional Italian sauce. As I already shared a few recipes for Italian pizza (here and here for example) I thought that I could complement those. You will see that my grandma pizza sauce is a perfect spaghetti pizza sauce.

Therefore we are going to explore together how to make pizza sauce in the following ways:

• Homemade Authentic Recipe for Italian Pizza Sauce
• Real Neapolitan Style Tomato Sauce
• BONUS: Recipe for Pizza Margherita “a filetto“

You will discover how easy is to cook homemade pizza sauce following authentic Italian tradition. Moreover you will be preparing a perfect and original tomato sauce for Neapolitan Pizza, again following the real recipe. Last but not least, as a bonus, I will share how to prepare tomato for a traditional Pizza in Naples called “margherita a filetto“.

Homemade Authentic Recipe for Italian Pizza Sauce

The one that follows is a pizza sauce recipe from my grandma. It is not complicated. Actually is very easy. In fact, my grandma pizza in sheet tray sauce recipe, reflects the perfect Italian tradition to keep it simple. Few ingredients and a lot of taste.

Keep it simple pizza sauce recipe: few ingredients, a lot of taste!

I am sharing how to prepare the sauce that will be ideal for pizza in pan or pizza in sheet tray. We are talking about the same pizza style from this perspective.

Ingredients weight is to prepare the recipe for Italian Pizza sauce that will be enough for a 30×40 cm pizza pan are:

• garlic (1 or 2 cloves)
• extra virgin olive oil
• peeled tomatoes (400gr can)
• salt (4 gr)

The preparation is incredibly easy:

Step 1

Take a sauce pan that is enough large to contain the amount of peeled tomatoes you are going to cook. For a 400 gr can I am using a 1 liter pan with lid like this one:

Put it on your cooker, add a thick surface of extra virgin olive oil and turn on the cooker at low temperature. On my induction cooker I use power 6 out of 9.

Step 2

Take one or maximum two cloves of garlic, peel them and let them fry in the warm oil very slowly and gently. Make sure they get cooked on all their sides.

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Step 3

Now you are ready to add peeled tomatoes from the can. Here we have two options. You can put them in a bowl and chop them with an immersion mixer first. Alternatively you can put them directly in the pan and once they are getting softer you can squeeze them with help of a fork.

In both cases, let them cook/fry for about 5/6 minutes at medium/high cooker power (I alternate between 7 and 8):

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While the pizza sauce is still cooking add the salt. After 7/8 minutes you can already turn off the cooker and let the pizza sauce resting!

Wasn’t it easy? I guess so! This is the beauty of Italian cuisine 🙂 I also have a bonus here. Believe it or not, what you just prepared is a wonderful spaghetti sauce. So if you ever asked yourself: can you use spaghetti sauce on pizza? then you now know that you can! Of course… assuming we are talking about the tomato sauce we just prepared.

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Real Neapolitan Style Tomato Sauce

Neapolitan pizza sauce does not require to cook tomatoes. It’s the opposite. You want to start with raw peeled tomatoes. The ones that you buy in super market in can is perfect. Forget about using tomato paste or any already prepared tomato sauce for pizza. You only want one can: raw peeled tomatoes. That’s it!

This is one of the most easy pizza sauce recipe

This is one of the most easy pizza sauce you will be preparing in your pizza journey. But still I think it is important to mention a couple of tips and to explain how to get it done.

So let’s start talking about how to prepare the peeled tomatoes for Neapolitan pizza. The process is as simple as:

• Open a can of peeled tomatoes
• put them in a bowl and add 1% of (sea, if possible) salt
• take an immersion mixer
• use 4/5 pulses of the immersion mixer to reduced peeled tomatoes in a sauce

Very important: when I say mixer pulses, I really mean pulses. You just press the power button for a fraction of a second for 4, maximum 5 times. The reason is that you want to make sure not to destroy seeds. If you do that the pizza sauce will become bitter.

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One more tip: do not use sugar. I repeat: do not use sugar in tomato sauce. There is no reason to do that and it will alter the original taste of the pizza.

There is one last information that I want to share. It is s about how much pizza sauce you need for each pizza. If you are using a standard spoon to spread out sauce and you are preparing a 26/30 cm pizza you will need 3 or 4 spoons of sauce. At the end of the day it means that with a single 400 gr can of peeled tomatoes you should be able to serve 5/8 pizza.

BONUS: Recipe for Pizza Margherita “A Filetto”

So far I already shared two pizza sauce recipes. I want to add a third one: how to make pizza sauce from fresh tomatoes. Better than that. Using fresh tomatoes we can avoid to create a sauce. Instead we can make a special Neapolitan pizza that is called “a filetto“.

So, rather than making a real pizza sauce, we are going to prepare raw tomatoes to be added on your pizza. The end result is something like this one:

All you have to do is to buy the proper cherry tomatoes! then:

• cut tomatoes in slices
• put them in a bowl
• add a bit of olive oil (1 tea spoon every 7/8 cherry tomatoes)
• a bit of salt
• let them rest for 1 hour

To use them, cook your Neapolitan style pizza with just mozzarella, pecorino cheese and the cherry tomatoes previously prepared. That’s it! One more very easy Italian style pizza topping!

I hope that you enjoyed this article. Comment and share if you like.

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