Stove Top Pizza Sauce

Stove Top Pizza Sauce

    Basket of garden-fresh Roma tomatoesA Tale of 2 Pizza Sauces: Act 1 Stove Top

    I started growing my own tomatoes in my raised bed garden.  Since then, it has been a long time since I have bought a jarred or canned pizza sauce.  I can usually freeze enough pizza sauce to last me until next year’s harvest.  The flavor of home-made pizza sauce with my own garden-fresh tomatoes captures the sweet and tangy tomato goodness.  Unlike the bland flavor of traditional or jarred sauces.  Lucious Roma or San Marzano tomatoes lend to a great sauce that can be used on a Margherita, sausage, pepperoni, or supreme pizzas that I make from scratch including homemade pizza dough.  I have developed 2 recipes that work well for me.  One is a quick pizza sauce that uses tomatoes and tomato paste. The other is a slow simmer sauce that takes time on the stove top to reduce into a pizza sauce consistency.  I get more sauce with the quick recipe as it does not reduce the moisture out of the tomatoes like the stove top method.  It also makes less of a mess as you don’t have spattering pizza sauce going over the stovetop when you open the lid to stir when using the stovetop method.

    Best tomatoes for pizza sauce: 

    Roma or San Marzano tomatoes are the best.  They have less moisture content and make for a thicker sauce.

    Oregano: 

    Most spices are quite expensive, so I grow my own oregano to use in my sauce, and my husband loves to sprinkle it on top of our pizzas.  Last year I had a little 6-inch pot on my deck with my oregano plant in it.  However, it didn’t really produce as much oregano as I would have liked.  In the fall when I was done harvesting as much as I could from the oregano plant.  I took the oregano plant and transplanted it into my landscape between my sedum and hardy ice plants.  He is one happy oregano plant; I have harvested from it multiple times and do nothing to it.  It gets rainwater from the heavens and nothing else.

    The link to the Quick Pizza Sauce Recipe is:  A Tale of Two Pizza Sauces: Act 2 – Traveling Garden Lady

    Ingredients

    • For: 1 serving (1/4 cup)
    • Cooking: 1 h 30 min
    • Ready in: 2 h 30 min

    Instructions

    1. Take the rinsed tomato quarters and put them into a stand blender and puree to a liquid/puree consistency.
    2. Put olive oil in pot or Dutch oven and heat on medium heat until warm then add garlic and stir for 1-2 minutes until aromatic. Then stir in the red chili flakes.
    3. Add the tomato puree and stir, set heat to medium low and allow sauce to thicken for 15-20 minutes. Put lid on pot during this process as the sauce tends to splatter while it is reducing. Stir occasionally to prevent burning and sticking tomatoes to bottom of pot.
    4. After 20 minutes add salt, sugar, oregano, basil and black pepper. Stir in.
    5. Cook on medium low for another 20-30 minutes until sauce reduces to desired sauce consistency. Allow sauce to cool before storing.
    6. Pizza sauce keeps in refrigerator for 2 weeks and freezes for up to 8-12 months in freezer containers.
    • Per serving
    • Energy: 70 kcal / 293 kJ
    • Fat: 7 g
    • Protein: 0 g
    • Carbs: 4 g

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