I love pizza! It ranks high as one of the foods I make most often at home. And this is my go-to pizza sauce recipe. It’s a red, tomato-based sauce with just five basic ingredients. It tastes fresh and flavorful but is pretty simple, letting your toppings do some of the work too. I also love this sauce recipe because it’s super easy to customize and add more herbs or spices to.

This pizza sauce makes around four cups of sauce. I tend to use one cup for one 15-inch pizza. So, this recipe will top four pizzas for me. I tend to keep leftovers in my refrigerator as we will use this for things like pizza bagels or pizza English muffins (easy, quick meals for our toddler). I also like to make store-bought fried mozzarella sticks or fried ravioli that we will throw into the air fryer for a snack and this sauce is perfect for dipping those too.

Related: While I love this tomato pizza sauce, I also like to use Alfredo sauce or pesto or even BBQ sauce on pizza instead.

Ingredients

• Whole peeled tomatoes
• Tomato paste
• Basil
• Italian seasoning
• garlic powder

I will sometimes add 1/8 teaspoon cayenne for just a little heat as well.

Directions

In a blender or larger food processor, add the whole peeled tomatoes (including the juices from the can), tomato paste, basil leaves, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder. Blend until smooth. Taste and add salt and pepper if you feel it needs it; I usually don’t.

You can use this sauce right away. Any sauce you don’t use that day can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for at least five days. You can also freeze this pizza sauce if you want to store it for longer.

Tips for Making

• With any recipe with so few ingredients the quality of those ingredients will make a big difference to the overall flavor of the recipe. So, when possible I like to use San Marzano tomatoes and fresh, fragrant basil.
• While I like to blend this sauce until smooth, you could absolutely leave it on the chunky side if you prefer that texture.
• Feel free to add more fresh herbs if you want—things like thyme or rosemary could be interesting. You can also add more spices, like cumin or even chili powder, depending on what you want from your pizza sauce. Any flavors that go well with tomatoes can work.

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