Simple, Fast Pizza Sauce

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Boy, I just finished one of the best pizzas we've ever made. Talk about good! I wish I could share a photo of this delectable beast of a pizza, but alas, it was not meant to be.

Here's what we had: A homemade whole wheat rosemary pizza crust with a red wine tomato sauce, slices of fresh ghost eggplant from our garden lightly fried, fresh tomato slices from the farmer's market, sauteed onions, bacon, fresh basil and slices of fresh mozzarella. Top that off with some sliced olives and there you have it. A damn good pizza.

Now, there's about as many ways to make a pizza sauce as there are to make pizza. I usually do something different every time, tweaking this or fiddling with that, so this is a little snapshot of one of our sauces. Sure was good though and beats those canned pizza sauces handily.

A note on the ingredients, yes, I do use canned tomatoes here. Tomatoes were late this year coming into the season for the really good stuff, probably because of the weird cold spring we had. Canned tomatoes are reliably good year-round, having been canned when the tomatoes are ripe -- and not that fake "ripe" they sell in stores. If you have beautiful garden-ripe tomatoes, use those, naturally.

Simple Fast Pizza Sauce [printable recipe]

  • 1 can diced tomatoes (about 2 cups fresh)
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1" of anchovy paste or 2 anchovy fillets
  • 2 tbsp red wine
  • 1 1/2 tbsp dried onion flakes1 or 1/2 small yellow onion, diced
  • 1/2 tsp marjoram
  • 1/2 tsp oregano
  • 1/8 tsp crushed red pepper
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 tbsp olive oil

Saute fresh onion, if using, in olive oil in a saucepot over medium heat. When lightly browned, add garlic and cook an additional 30 seconds. Pour in tomatoes with their juices and add remaining ingredients. Stir well and reduce heat to a bare simmer. Let cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender or in a real blender before using.

Notes:

  1. I have dried onion flakes on-hand because they make great toppings for bagels and they can be easily added to doughs without upsetting the dry-liquid balance.