The Best Homemade Pizza Sauce

An easy recipe for The Best Homemade Pizza Sauce. A tasty red sauce that’s thick, rich and bold – with bright, fresh tomato flavor!

Gourmet Pizza with Homemade Sauce

There’s just nothing compared to being able to make the perfect homemade pizza at home…homemade crust, homemade sauce and all. An extraordinary gourmet pizza is absolutely one of the quickest ways to steal my foodie heart. And Family Pizza Night always wins in our home!

I just recently shared with you my recipe for the most awesome thin crust pizza dough. You have no idea how happy I was to finally be able to create a pizza crust that’s truly thin, with a crisp and chewy bite. If you like a good brick oven pizza, this is the closest you’ll get while using a regular oven!

So I already shared my favorite thin crust pizza dough recipe. Now let’s get to The Best Homemade Pizza Sauce! Use it for all your favorite pizza-making combinations, and then stick around to see how our family makes an irresistible Pepperoni Jalapeno Honey Pizza!

* This is a sponsored post, created in partnership with Red Gold.

Our family has always enjoyed at least one pizza meal every single week, whether it’s dine-in, take-out, take-and-bake, frozen (I hope that doesn’t surprise you – everyone needs a super quick and easy meal at their fingertips!), or homemade.

And now that we finally have killer recipes for both the crust and the sauce, we’ve made more homemade pizzas in the past couple months than we have in the past ten years. Totally not kidding. These recipes are that good!

What Makes this Pizza so Special? The Sauce!

So let’s get this pizza show on the road, shall we? Let’s talk about the sauce!

I can be pretty judgmental when it comes to pizza sauce, and one of our favorite local take-out places features a sauce that I’ve always envied. Their sauce is thick, rich and bold, with wonderful tomato flavor. I love it!

My own homemade red sauce has all those same components of a great pizza sauce. It’s thick, which makes it easily spreadable and dippable – no watery pizza sauce allowed! And the sauce is anything but wimpy when it comes to flavor. It’s rich and bold, with bright, fresh tomato flavor.

And the secret to my super easy pizza sauce recipe? It’s all about the Red Gold Tomatoes. Once I discovered how much better their tomato products are, I haven’t looked back. You’ll always find Red Gold in our pantry!

A little bit about Red Gold tomato products! Red Gold Tomatoes is family-owned and operated by the Reichart family for four generations, and sources tomatoes from more than 40 Midwest family farms. The tomatoes are picked when they are absolutely vine-ripe-red, eliminating the need to add artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives – nothing artificial. And they are steam packed fresh to preserve their true tomato flavor. If you compare their products with other brands, you’ll quickly realize exactly what that means. Red Gold is just plain better!

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this recipe:

• olive oil
• grated onion – I prefer grated onion so there aren’t noticeable chunks in the sauce
• minced garlic
• Red Gold Tomato Sauce
• Red Gold Tomato Paste – for added thickness and deeper tomato flavor
• sugar – just a little bit for a touch of sweetness!
• kosher salt
• dried oregano
• dried basil
• ground black pepper
• crushed red pepper – use as little or as much as you like!

How to Make Homemade Pizza Sauce

All you need is about 30 minutes, and you’ll have enough pizza sauce for several pizzas.

This is a great recipe for getting kids involved in the kitchen. Younger ones can measure out dry ingredients, while those with more experience can grate the onion, chop the garlic, and tend to the saucepan on the stovetop.

Here’s how to make the sauce:

1. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. Stir in remaining ingredients – Red Gold tomato sauce and tomato paste, sugar, salt, oregano, basil, black pepper, and crushed red pepper – and cook until thoroughly warmed.
3. Simmer for 20 minutes over low heat.

You’ll want to use this sauce in all your pizza meal fun. Incorporate it in Pizza Rolls and Grilled Flatbread Pizza. And use it as a dip for Cheesy Garlic Bread and Pepperoni Pizza Grilled Cheese.

Tips for the Best Sauce

• Use the best canned tomato products. This should come without saying. But I know from past conversations with family and friends, that many people get stuck in a rut and don’t tend to try different products. If you haven’t yet experienced the Red Gold difference, I strongly urge you to do so!
• Grate the onion. I like a thick pizza sauce, but not a chunky pizza sauce. That’s why I use a box grater to grate the onion for this recipe.
• Add a little sugar. This is something that Mom taught me long ago. Even just a pinch of sugar in recipes that incorporate tomatoes will bring out a beautiful sweetness.
• Kick up the heat. Or don’t! The great thing about homemade pizza sauce is that YOU control the ingredients. If you like a super kickin’ sauce, then add even more ground black pepper and red pepper flakes!

What Pizza Dough to Use

I’d been on a quest for the best (easiest + most reliable +best tasting) homemade pizza dough for a number of years. And I finally conquered it!

Here’s my favorite thin crust pizza dough. It’s a simple recipe that yields a beautiful dough that’s easy to work with. It bakes up fabulously and tastes amazing!

Tessa, our youngest, loves to play with the tender, yet sturdy dough. She’s always the first to volunteer to roll out the crust on Family Pizza Night.

How to Assemble and Cook Your Pizza

Next comes a schmear of that wonderful pizza sauce over the crust…

followed by shredded mozzarella, pepperoni, and slices of jalapeno. And then into the hot oven it goes.

And when I say “hot”, I mean 500° F. The high temp cooks this pizza to crispy, chewy perfection in just 8 minutes!

Serving Suggestions

While the pizza’s baking, you’ll often find us prepping a fresh salad. This Italian Chopped Salad is absolute perfection, and a great dish to pass around the table on Family Pizza Night.

Other suggestions for you would be: Cheesy Garlic Bread, simple fresh greens dressed with Italian Vinaigrette, and Grilled Mini Sweet Peppers with Goat Cheese.

When the pizza comes out of the oven, it gets a quick drizzle of honey. This pepperoni-jalapeno-honey combination was inspired by one of my favorite Minnesota restaurants. Their pizzas are famous, and rightfully so!

If jalapenos on pizza don’t sound awesome to you, go ahead and leave them off. But do still drizzle a little honey over that pepperoni pizza. Our kids now request honey on every pepperoni pizza that comes out of the oven!

All that’s left to do is slice it up and dig in!

Just ask my family how happy this recipe makes me. They’ll not hesitate to tell you that I’m like a little kid on Christmas morning, giddy with excitement as I pull each gorgeous, delicious pizza from the screaming hot oven.

I do hope you’ll enjoy our family’s favorite homemade pizza as much as we do. Happy pizza baking to you, and you, and you!!

Can I Make This Pizza Sauce in Advance?

This recipe works great to make ahead of time.

Simply remove the saucepan from the heat and let the pizza sauce cool to room temperature. Then transfer it to a container with a tight fitting lid, and store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

How to Freeze Homemade Sauce

To freeze, let pizza sauce cool to room temperature and then transfer to freezer-safe containers or bags. Store in the freezer for up to 3 months and then thaw in the refrigerator before using.

Thank you to Red Gold for sponsoring this post – it has been both an honor and a pleasure to partner with them over the past several years. All opinions are my own.