Tomato Sauce vs Pizza Sauce Review

If you’re a self-baking pizza lover, you must be wondering what kind of sauce would work best.

Pizza sauce requires cooking, but tomato sauce is ready to eat. Well, tomato sauce vs pizza sauce: what to get this time?

In this article, you will learn everything you need to know about pizza sauces, their differences and advantages, and whether pizza sauce vs pasta sauce is the correct way to put the question about sauces.

Tomato Sauce vs Pizza Sauce Guide + White pizza sauce bonus

What Is Pizza Sauce?

This is a ready-made tomato based sauce that you will find in the supermarket. Jarred pizza sauce includes tomato paste, tomato puree, garlic, balsamic sauce, olive oil, salt and oregano.

Pizza sauce is also quite versatile and can be used in other recipes besides pizza.

Spread pizza sauce thinly over the pizza crust. Add ingredients to taste and bake the dish in the oven.

Pizza sauce can be used as a pasta sauce too. Just put pizza sauce in your pasta dish and add vegetables or meat to taste.

How Is The Pasta Sauce Made?

Pasta sauce is also prepared on the basis of tomatoes. Many people even refer to it as “tomato sauce”. It’s also Italian, so some people confuse the two.

However, pasta sauce is not always made with fresh tomatoes. It uses ready-made tomato sauce (perhaps even pizza sauce) mixed with other ingredients. All ingredients are prepared before mixing.

Pasta sauce, or marinara sauce, the composition includes ready-to-eat crushed tomatoes, onion powder, minced garlic. Some jarred pasta sauce may include italian sausage, ground beef, and so on. Marinara sauce is a great for pasta dishes, pizza, sandwiches. You can simply boil your favorite pasta, drizzle cooked pasta with marinara sauce and season with cheese.

spaghetti cooking

Difference between Pizza Sauce And Tomato Sauce

Pizza sauce and pasta sauce have similar ingredients. But pizza sauce includes pureed tomatoes rather than crushed tomatoes. Marinara or spaghetti sauce consists of fresh tomatoes or canned crushed tomatoes. Pizza sauce has olive oil.

Consistency

The pizza sauce is a much thicker sauce. Watery sauces are generally not a good idea for pizza as the pizza dough can get soggy during the cooking process. Thus, you will not get a crispy pizza.

You can find tomato chunks in the pasta sauce, and the pizza sauce is a very smooth tomato sauce.

Ingredients

Tomato sauce, as the name suggests, contains tomatoes. Pizza sauce may not always have a tomato base, it can be cream, pesto, and so on, after all, there are a great many types of pizza.

Pasta sauce is a red sauce, pizza sauce will have more of an orange tint and a creamy texture.

Tomato sauce is also called spaghetti sauce or pasta sauce because it can be used in a wide variety of dishes, even soups.

Canned tomatoes

Tomato sauce vs pizza sauce

Pizza sauce vs pasta sauce is really debatable. Just keep sauce thick whether it’s tomato sauce or pizza sauce. Marinara sauce will make great dipping sauce. You can substitute pasta sauce that is usual for you with marinara sauce.

Pizza sauce vs spaghetti sauce (marinara)

Marinara sauce has a brighter flavour, since all the ingredients have been processed and filled the sauce with their aroma, pizza sauce needs to be cooked before eating.

Tomato sauce is created by mixing raw ingredients. It is not cooked until it is added to the pizza dough. Marinara sauce is prepared before being added to another dish and contains other key ingredients besides tomato sauce.

More interested? Welcome to Pizza Sauce vs Pasta Sauce: What Is the Difference?

Pizza sauce vs pasta sauce

With the variety of tomato sauces on the market, it can be hard to keep track of their different flavors, especially when they’re all from the same culinary background. Italian cuisine is widely known for having a big impact on cooking in regards to sauces, not to mention pizza or marinara.

How To Make Pizza Sauce at Home

There are many different ways to make pizza sauce. However, you can stick to basic recipe.

Pizza sauce does not require cooking. Some people prefer to cook the garlic, onion, and spices before mixing them; however, we do not believe this is required as it will cook when added to pizza.

Add all ingredients to a blender, then blend for a few seconds. If you want your sauce to be thinner and smoother, mix longer. Thus you’ll have smooth tomato sauce.

Use garlic or garlic powder, onion powder or finely chopped onions, Italian seasoning, parmesan cheese, fresh basil leaves, dried oregano and fresh tomatoes.

Chop up mozzarella sticks right into pizza sauce to make your pizza extra cheesy.

Basil in Tomato Sauce vs Pizza Sauce

Pizza Sauce Recipes: How to Cook

The sauce starts with the base: olive oil makes sauces lighter creamy – fatter. Keep this in mind when making homemade pizza. An important component of the recipe – greens, fresh or dried, depends on taste preferences and time of year.

If you are going to cook tomato sauce, pay attention that oregano must be present in the seasoning, do not forget to add nutmeg to the creamy sauce.

Other things being equal, fresh herbs are usually preferred over dried herbs, but this is not the case with oregano. The taste of oregano is best revealed when dried.

Tomatoes for making red sauce can be used in any form: fresh, canned sun-dried tomatoes, tomato juice or paste.

The only thing you need to follow when replacing one type of tomato with another in the recipe is the balance of acid and sweetness of tomatoes. If the tomato sauce seems too sour due to the use of canned tomatoes or too sour tomato paste, for example, add sugar to taste.

Homemade Tomato Sauce for Pizza

The most delicious sauce for homemade pizza is tomato Italian.

The traditional tomato sauce for pizza varies from one region of Italy to another.

Some pizzaiolo prepare the sauce exclusively from fresh tomatoes, the second – from tomato juice, and the third – from tomato paste. In this recipe, we will cook a sauce of tomato paste and sun-dried tomatoes.

The latter give the sauce an exceptional taste and aroma, however, if there was no sun-dried tomato at home, it does not matter, replace them with fresh or canned ones.

The classic tomato sauce for real Italian pizza goes well with absolutely any toppings : just brush the pizza dough with sauce , add the topping and cheese of your choice , put in the oven for 20 minutes , and delicious pizza like in a pizzeria is ready.

The sauce should be tasty, but not too sweet or too sour. The preparation of any sauce begins with the base. You need to know and remember that butter will make the sauce greasy, and olive oil will make it light.

tomatoes can for sauce

Ingredients for homemade tomato sauce

  • garlic 2 cloves
  • sun-dried tomatoes in oil – 8 pcs (or fresh chopped 2 tablespoons)
  • dried oregano -2 tsp
  • dried basil – 1.5 tsp
  • white wine – a quarter of a glass
  • tomato paste – 1 can
  • water – 1 glass
  • salt -2 pinches

Step-by-step homemade tomato sauce recipe

  1. Chop the onion.
  2. Pour the onion into a frying pan preheated over medium heat and add olive oil there.
  3. Also add garlic to the pan.
  4. Mix everything and fry until softened.
  5. Then add chopped tomatoes and mix again.
  6. Add oregano and basil.
  7. Stir again and keep cooking tomatoes for another 3-4 minutes.
  8. Slightly add fire and pour wine.
  9. Mix everything and let the sauce simmer a little.
  10. Turn up the heat and add the tomato sauce to the pan.
  11. Pour water.
  12. Mix everything with a whisk and cook further for about fifteen minutes.
  13. Next, add salt and pepper to taste.
  14. When the sauce has cooled down a bit, it must be transferred to a special airtight container.

White Pizza Sauce

Delicious, tender, fragrant, rich, creamy! White pizza sauce is the best alternative to the tomato sauce commonly used on the famous Italian dishes. It is prepared in milk with the addition of butter, flour, cheese and various seasonings and can be used as pasta sauce as well. White pizza sauce has rich aroma and creamy texture.

Ingredients for white pizza sauce

  • Butter
  • Milk
  • Flour
  • Nutmeg
  • Oregano
  • Hard cheese
  • Salt
  • Oregano
  • Black pepper
  • Garlic
White-Pizza-Sauce Bonus

Step-by-step white pizza sauce recipe

Step 1: Preparing

How to make white pizza sauce? Prepare all ingredients. It is better to take milk from the refrigerator, the sauce will be thicker and more uniform. As a hard cheese, it is better to choose parmesan. It has a rich taste. It is also better to use nutmeg in its entirety, so the dish will turn out to be more fragrant.

Step 2: Butter melting

Peel the garlic clove and finely chop with a sharp knife. In a non-stick saucepan, melt the butter over low heat so that it does not boil or foam. When the butter is melted, turn up the heat, put the chopped garlic and herbs into the pan. Lightly fry, just so that the butter has a pleasant aroma, it is not necessary to fry the garlic to the coals.

Pour in the flour and quickly mix with a silicone spatula. You need to mix quickly, otherwise lumps may form when the butter and flour are combined.

By the way, did you know that there is a knife sharpness scale? Read more here: How To Sharpen A Pizza Cutter: Guide For All Cutter Types.

Step 3: Thickening

While continuing to stir, slowly pour in cold milk. Milk must be poured in gradually for the same reason, to avoid the formation of lumps. Sauce may burn on high heat. Continue to simmer the sauce over low heat until it thickens. How thick should the pizza sauce be? It is not necessary to turn it into a thick mass, the sauce should drain from the spatula.

Step 4: Grating Parmesan

Finely grate the Parmesan. There are two options here. First: with the help of a kitchen grater, pre-cooled, so the cheese will be easier to grate. Second: with the help of a blender, cut the parmesan into cubes and grind it in a blender using a disc with a fine grater. Cheese cannot be grated on a coarse grater, since the pizza sauce should be homogeneous, we do not need floating pieces of cheese in the sauce.

Do you want to know who invented parmesan? Parmigiano Reggiano knows the answer.

Parmesan in Tomato Sauce vs Pizza Sauce

Step 5: Seasoning

Add grated cheese to the sauce, salt, pepper, add a pinch of nutmeg and mix. Be careful with the amount of salt, as Parmesan itself is quite salty. Remove sauce from heat and let cool slightly before using. Spread the prepared sauce on the pizza base, a little short of its edges.

If the sauce has thickened too much and is difficult to spread on the pizza, simply return it to the stove again and heat it up a bit.

You can use it as pasta sauce.

And here is another video recipe for your attention. This tomato sauce by Vincenzo’s Plate includes carrots, celery, onions and basil in addition to canned tomatoes.

FAQ

Can I substitute tomato sauce for pizza sauce?

Uncooked tomato sauce will work well if it has thicker consistency, watery sauce can ruin your pizza crust. Thicker pizza sauce will give you crunchy and tasty pizza, use paste like pizza sauce if you can.

What can I substitute for pizza sauce?

There is a great number sauces you can choose from, depending on your taste. You can use alfredo, pesto, roasted garlic with olive oil and canned tomatoes. You can cook pesto by simply putting basil leaves, garlic, pine seeds etc. in food processor.

Can I substitute pizza sauce for tomato puree?

Tomato puree would not have much flavor itself, use pasta sauce instead, just thick one.
Pasta sauce can be a little watery but it does contain tomato puree. If you don’t have pasta sauce but only puree, add some herbs and onion powder to it to give your pizza appetizing aroma.

Does tomato sauce work on pizza?

It will work fine, just make sure that it is not too watery. And if it is plain tomato sauce with few ingredients, you have to add some spices to make sure that pizza will have robust flavor. For example, add some garlic powder, red pepper flakes, bay leaf etc.

Which is better, pizza sauce vs pasta sauce?

It depends on the texture you want for your dish and the amount of flavors.

Conclusion

Tomato sauce vs pizza sauce is a really interesting question for Italian food lovers. Both pasta sauce and pizza sauce can vary in ingredients and ways of cooking.

tomato puree

Spaghetti sauce or pasta sauce would usually consist tomato chunks and have more thin texture. Pizza sauce on the opposite tend to have thick smooth texture.

We hope that your pizza sauce vs pasta sauce dilemma have been succesfully solved with our article!

Malena Miller

“If you love pizza as much as I do, then I think we can get along.”

I run this blog and I love making pizza. I have 150 pizza recipes. I want to share with you the secrets of cooking pizza

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