Easy Homemade Pizza Sauce with Tomato Paste

This quick homemade pizza sauce is super easy, made from tomato paste, and very tasty. It’s flavored with dried spices and a bit of red wine!

Say goodbye to soggy pizza crust!

This is the best homemade pizza sauce recipe for days when you don’t want to spend hours (too dramatic?) reducing a tomato sauce.

The thing that makes this pizza sauce so quick and easy is that it utilizes some power ingredients:

• Unlike fresh tomatoes or even canned tomatoes, tomato paste is already reduced and thick, so you don’t need to boil tomato sauce endlessly to get it to the right consistency.
• The recipe calls for dried instead of fresh herbs so there’s no need to chop anything. At all. Can I get a lazy-girl (or time-strapped-girl) amen?!

I also added red wine for a really lovely flavor. It’s definitely optional if you don’t consume alcohol (or don’t have any on hand), but for the best flavor I encourage you to use it. I think of it kind of like the vanilla extract of pizza sauce – just a bit to give it flavor.

Okay, let me show you how to make my easy pizza sauce recipe!

Video Tutorial:

 

Here’s a quick video demonstration in case you learn better by watching. The written tutorial and printable recipe are below!

Ingredients:

Here are the simple ingredients you’ll need for this quick pizza sauce:

• 1/4 cups + 2 tablespoons organic tomato paste: I really like the Bionaturae tomato paste since it comes in a glass jar with a lid. I rarely use a whole jar or can in one recipe, so the glass jar makes storing leftovers SO much easier!
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil: You could technically use a milder olive oil, but its purpose is to add flavor, so I highly encourage you to opt for extra virgin.
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano: This is an ingredient that just screams “pizza” to me. You could substitute Italian seasoning or basil if you prefer.
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder: Could you use fresh garlic here? Of course. But the garlic powder saves an extra step on days when you can’t even mince garlic.
• 1 teaspoon onion powder: Same goes for the onion powder: perfect for days when chopping an onion sounds impossible. 
• 1/2 teaspoon real salt: You can use whatever salt you have on hand, but you may wish to reduce the amount a bit since unrefined salt contains less sodium than table salt.
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon maple syrup: I like a bit of sweetness in my pizza sauce (it helps to balance out the acidity of the tomatoes), so I added some maple syrup. Feel free to substitute whatever sweetener you have on hand!
• 1 tablespoon + 1-2 tablespoons red wine: This is optional, but it lends such a lovely flavor to this pizza sauce! I encourage you to try it with the wine at least once. 
• 1/4 cup water: A good pizza, in my book, is nice and thick. But since the tomato paste is SO concentrated, you’ll want to thin it out a bit with some water.

 

How to Make Pizza Sauce from Tomato Paste:

Here’s where it gets a bit complicated.

Just kidding!

Simply put all of the ingredients into a small saucepan, give it a really good whisk, and place over medium heat until warm and bubbly.

That’s literally it.

See how easy it was to make your own pizza sauce? And it only took a couple of minutes of your time!

Notes:

I’ll bet that you have the majority of these ingredients already because this recipe relies on pantry staples. But you can always make a few subs if needed, because who wants to run to the grocery store at the last minute?

If you don’t have maple syrup, use cane sugar instead. No wine? Sub more water. No onion or garlic powder? You can sauté up fresh onion and garlic if you have it on hand (and don’t mind a bit of chopping).

I DO NOT recommend substituting tomato sauce for the tomato paste, because it has a higher water content. 

If you like a bit of heat, you could add some red pepper flakes.

Just make sure to taste it and make it your own. Add more sweetness, a bit of spice, a bit of salt, whatever you think it needs!

 

Serving:

Obviously you can use this to make some delicious homemade pizzas.

Or you could use it as a dipping sauce in place of marinara sauce for garlic bread, pizza rolls, or mozzarella sticks.

Storing:

Store any extra sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

You can also freeze this in a freezer bag or another freezer-safe container for longer storage. If you freeze it in an ice cube tray first, it will be really easy to thaw just what you need.

You could make a big batch and freeze for a make-ahead option.

Story Time:

Growing up, I actually didn’t really like homemade pizza. My mom would make it with green peppers, which I despised at the time.

I remember stealthily slipping a slimy green pepper onto the carpeted dining room floor, hoping that no one would notice. I can’t recall if I was caught in my heinous crime.

As a teen, I became obsessed with recreating my family’s favorite “junk foods” (I don’t believe food should be classified as “junk” and “not-junk”) with more natural ingredients. I decided to tackle frozen pizza.

So of course I came up with my own pizza sauce. I wasn’t aware that you could find healthy-ish store-bought pizza sauce. And besides, my mom wouldn’t have stood for buying it.

Luckily for me, I hit on the perfect flavors the first time I made it. And I made it again and again. Homemade pizza night became a regular occurrence in our house once more.

 

So that’s my easy homemade pizza sauce recipe! Make sure to check out my other pizza-related recipes below:

More Pizza Recipes:

• Pizza Stuffed Mushrooms
• How to Grill Pizza
• 12 Best Tips for Homemade Pizza
• Einkorn Pizza Dough Recipe
• Pizza Mushrooms (Low Carb)
• Philly Cheese Steak Pizza

Recipe Card:

Originally published on Apr 26, 2017 at 06:00