How to Make Pizza Sauce with San Marzano Tomatoes

By AzWench

I watched every how to make pizza sauce on the internet and still didn't find one I like 100 percent. Making pizza sauce is not an exact science with a one recipe fits all approach. All of the videos on youtube are recipes that mostly fit the people preparing them in the video. They might really like that style, but will you? Will everyone else? It's doubtful. About the only thing one can do is examine how other people did the "basics" and then adapt those recipes into your own - to suit your own tastes.

Ingredients

• 2 quarts fresh san marzanos peeled, seeded, and crushed (crushed by hand or with a potato masher
• 2 or 3 garlic cloves minced & sauteed
• Small handfull of fresh chopped basil
• Salt & pepper to taste

Preparation

Step 1

This videos uses actual San Marzano tomatoes and shows you from beginning to end how to turn them into Pizza Sauce. Their method for removing seeds is great, fast, but doesn't get all of them and they use waaay too much basil for my tastes, and I am not sure I would prefer this "chunky" style. If it were me, I would run it through the blender after cooking to get it down smoother.

I wrote down their ingredients in case you are not fast enough to write them down when they appear on the video.

This next video involves strained tomatoes which produces a pizza sauce more peope are familiar with (as opposed to the above chunky/heavy version). No seeds, smooth, no chunkiness. Word of caution: From what I observed, and other viewers commented on in youtube, this cook went overboard on the spices and used too many. But this recipe does have it's good points and you should be able to use his basics to combine your own flavors to suit your tastes.

Olive oil
2 cloves garlic,
Strained Tomatoes
Crushed red pepper
Thyme
Blended italian seasonings
Salt
Brown sugar

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Maybe I am just being biased but I think the sauce/video we produced for our sister website Roma-Tomato.com works great on pizza because we've done it that way and we enjoyed it. The slow cook aspect of it simmers the sauce down for a long time until it gets thicker and thicker while a lot of the tomato flavor is cooked in. Unlike many others, we remove the seeds and leftover through a strainer or food mill. Follow the last variation on the video which calls for:

1 small onion, fine chopped
1-2 gloves of garlic, minced
salt, pepper to taste,
Oregano to preference.

After that, add your other favorite ingredients which are not listed on the video:

Oregano, Italian seasoning, basil, chopped red pepper or paprika, brown sugar
A litle olive oil in the beginning might also work for some people.


American marinara sauce is not the same as Italian marinara sauce. Marinara means "Marine" - as in the sea, and the following recipes are what makes up the base of an Italian Marinara sauce that is a seafood based sauce for mussells, or red clam sauce. Americans use this base quite differently.

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The following recipe is from an Italian chef and looks really good and is so incredibly simple. I've writen down the ingredients and major points for your convenience.

Ingredients:

Extra Virgin Olive OIl, 1/4 cup
Chopped garlic cloves, 4-6
32 ounce can of partly crushed San Marzano or plum tomatoes.
Chopped parsley and basil
3 "pinches" of black pepper
4 pinces of Kosher salt.

Major Points:

Cook for 25 minutes if using can tomatoes. Garden fresh tomatoes might require longer cooking/simmering. Pay attention to what he says about it toward the end of the video. However, he doesn't say how long to cook if you use fresh tomatoes. This recipe also produces a "chunky" marinara sauce, like the one below and as the cook below states, if you want it "smoother" you can run it through the blender after cooking.


As she says in the video below, this is more of a chunky marinara sauce. According to her, if you want it smoother, you can "blend it" (through a blender).

She uses a lot of basil and if you are cooking with canned San Marzano tomatoes, remember that most of them come packed with basil - so you dont want to ADD too much more.

Ingredients

Olive oil
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves minced,
2 tbsp chopped basil
30 oz chopped/diced tomatoes (San Marzano of course)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp oregano
salt & pepper

Major Points:

Let the olive oil and onion cook together for 8-10 minutes so that it is a "little bit brown." Then add garlic, basil, stir together, then add tomatoes, followed by water in the amount of 1/4 of the tomato can. She then adds the tomato pastes and mixes it in well. Then add your oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer for 20 minutes (fresh tomatoes might take longer).



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This is another video/recipe from "Giuliana" with DeLallo brand for their DOP San Marzano tomatoes. She starts out describing it as a tomato sauce but later says it's also a simple marinara sauce. A longer video but very informative. Although she mixes in the pasta when she's done, it's not necessary if using as a marinara sauce for other purposes.

Ingredients:

Coat bottom of pan with oil
Garlic (crushed, but not minced as she will remove it and the onion when she is done)
1 Med. Yellow onion
1 28 ounce can of DeLallo San Marzano tomatoes,
Salt
Basil