# Pizza Sauce?



## giggler

I would like to make KL's pizza caserole..

It calls for Pizza Sauce of your choice..

I looked in the grocer last night, they have like 100 bottles of pasta sauce, and then this sad little section of pizza stuff with a few tiny bottles of pizza sauce..

They even had Chef Boyar Dee! I haven't had that since Spaghetti O's!

What makes pizza sauce? Should I just add a Handful of Italian season to a regular bottle of pasta sauce? or buy the pizza sauce?

Confused as always, Eric, Austin Tx.


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## CraigC

I prefer making my own sauce. It can be a cooked or raw sauce, but for me it needs to be a little sweet and spicy. Even if we do buy jarred sauce for anything (pizza or pasta), it always gets doctored.


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## larry_stewart

IMO I don't think there is a difference.
Both are tomato based.
Often the pasta sauces you buy will sometimes have other things added ( like mushrooms, onions...) , or a chunkier consistency.
Pizza sauces may be a little simpler as to what is added in.
The spices will vary on the brand or who is making the sauce, but I would assume both would have Oregano and Basil ( and probably garlic).
Anything added to a pasta sauce would taste just fine in that casserole anyway.

Therefore, choose whatever pizza or pasta sauce that appeals to you.  I don't thing you can go wrong.

***That being said, I'd personally stay away from the Chef Boy ar Dee, unless you're looking for that Nostalgic, taste from your childhood  ***

Larry


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## Whiskadoodle

I think pizza sauce is thicker than pasta sauce.  However for pizza sauce I use jarred pasta sauce.  Cook part of it down at a very slow simmer so as to not burn the sauce since they tend to put some kind of sugar in it usually.  Add some more herbs especially oregano and a healthy pinch of pizza pepper flakes.  

I looked my recipes.  Of all the recipes on the internet, I have one homemade pizza sauce.   Don't recall ever making it.  But you can have at it.  
Kittencals Pizza Sauce Recipe - Food.com

I too copied KL' s recipe.  Mostly because I thought it was a good cross between a quiche and a casserole and Pizza.


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## tenspeed

If you're in a hurry mix a 6 oz. can of tomato paste with a 15 oz. can of tomato sauce.  It doesn't need to be cooked (as anything you buy in a can already is).  It works.

  If you have more time add some seasonings (oregano, basil, garlic, a Tbsp. of  olive oil, etc.) and simmer for an hour or two.


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## Aunt Bea

This is the simple inexpensive pizza sauce recipe that I use.

It is very, very thick and helps to prevent a soggy pizza.  If I was using it in Kayelle's casserole I would probably thin it a little with some wine, water or both.


Pizza Sauce
 1 6 oz. can tomato paste
 ¼ -  ½ cup water
 2 cloves minced garlic
 1T Oregano
 1T Basil
 Mix well.  This makes enough for 2 sheet pizzas.  I make one and freeze the remainder for the next pizza.  This is also good to use in making “snails”.  Roll out dough, top with sauce and grated cheese, roll up and slice.  Place rounds on baking sheet and let rise, brush with EVOO, dust with grated cheese, bake as for pizza.


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## puffin3

1 large bottle of Original V8 juice.
Into pot. Medium heat. 1 large T of dried oregano. 1/2 t of fish sauce or anchovy paste.
1T sugar. 1T dried basil. 2 cloves crushed garlic. 1 fine chopped small sweet onion. Simmer for an hour over very low heat to reduce.
Personally I never used pizza sauce on any pizza.
The above recipe is my 'base' for anything calling for a 'tomato sauce' so it will work as a pizza topping.
How many posters here have bought/made a pizza and all the topping want to slide off the crust. Everyone.
This is how I build every pizza no matter what the ingredients because I prefer to keep the toppings from sliding off:
I bake the shells on the pizza stone in the medium hot, that's right not screaming hot oven, I bake one side. The top forms large air pockets which I push down using an oven mitt. Then I flip the shell over and bake the other side. When the shell is just turning brown at the edges I remove the shell and put it on a cutting board to cool. Sometimes I'll prebake a dozen regular size shells this way depending on how many are invited for my famous pizza-party.
Now the 'build'. I have maybe two dozen toppings in bowls for the guests to custom build their own pizzas.
The first part is CRITICAL! #1 Take a shell and brush a liberal coating of olive oil on it. #2 Sprinkle on a thin layer of fine grafted fresh mozza. cheese. #3 From this point on it doesn't matter what toppings you put on....except pizza sauce.  I like to put caramelized onions on the mozza cheese and then pretty much anything goes.
If you want to put pizza sauce on just put it on last. I use thin sliced tomatoes and a sprinkle of fresh fine chopped basil as a topping if I want that flavor.
Believe me. Follow this method and you'll never end up with a sloppy mass of pizza toppings on your lap again.
When the pizzas are built and ready for the oven I turn up the heat to about 400F. I want all the ingredients to get bubbly hot. If I have the heat up too high the top toppings will get hot too fast before the topping closer to the shell get bubbly hot. And the bottom of the shell may burn.
 Years ago I started leaving the pizza stone in the oven on the bottom rack. When I use it I put it on the middle rack. The stone now looks like shiny black glass.
Years ago I got a piece of heavy stiff cardboard from a packing box. I cut a circle a little bigger than a regular pizza. When a pizza is built and ready for the oven I carefully slide it onto the cardboard the carefully slide the built pizza off the cardboard onto the pizza stone.
 I'd be happy to hear from anyone who gives this method a try.
I learned this method from Italian resturant in San Remo.
Cheers!


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## Roll_Bones

I use my marinara sauce for pizza.  The same sauce i use for everything else. I have several small containers in the freezer at any given time.
BTW, I need to make more. I'm running low.
Since I found out how good flat bread makes pizza's, I have been making them a lot lately.  No dough to make. And very good.


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## FrankZ

I like Don Pepino pizza sauce.


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## Dawgluver

I just use spaghetti sauce.  As mentioned, if you want it thicker you can simmer it for awhile.


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## Kayelle

Hi Eric! Thanks for wanting to try that recipe. Easy is the best solution here.

 Sad you don't have a Trader Joe's near you for the best pizza sauce anywhere imo. The topping for the casserole needs to be slightly thicker and more heavily seasoned than a classic pasta sauce. An easy solution is you could add a little more Italian Seasonings (I buy the mix of seasonings) and simmer a pasta sauce long enough for it to thicken to the consistency of pizza sauce.


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## CharlieD

Here is a little article that I found. Might be interesting to read.


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## larry_stewart

FrankZ said:


> I like Don Pepino pizza sauce.



You and me both.  I thought I was the only one.
I love the stuf


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## CharlieD

CharlieD said:


> Here is a little article that I found. Might be interesting to read.



Oops. Forgot to add the link. Here it is : Difference Between Pizza Sauce and Tomato Sauce


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## Andy M.

Olive oil, onion, garlic, tomato paste, tomato, oregano, S&P. I use a stick blender to puree the sauce. A batch of sauce using a 28 ounce can of tomato is enough for five 16" pizzas.


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## Kayelle

I don't think a white pizza sauce would work for the recipe I posted but here's a great sounding white pizza...

White Pizza Sauce Recipe ~ A Macheesmo Favorite


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## Sir_Loin_of_Beef

Pizza sauce has oregano. Spaghetti sauce doesn't. So if you want to make your own pizza sauce, add oregano to your spaghetti sauce.


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## Kayelle

Here we go again about oregano in spaghetti sauce. My own spaghetti sauce always includes dried oregano in it.  If yours doesn't that's fine by me.


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## Andy M.

I make a well seasoned tomato sauce for pasta. 

When I look at basic tomato sauce recipes from acknowledged experts on authentic Italian cooking, it's not at all similar.  I don't care.  I like it.

Marcella Hazan and Mario Batali make their basic tomato sauce with olive oil, onion and tomato and maybe some salt and pepper.


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## larry_stewart

Kayelle said:


> Here we go again about oregano in spaghetti sauce. My own spaghetti sauce always includes dried oregano in it.  If yours doesn't that's fine by me.



Im with you


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## Cooking Goddess

Kayelle said:


> Here we go again about oregano in spaghetti sauce. My own spaghetti sauce always includes dried oregano in it.  If yours doesn't that's fine by me.



I also use dried oregano in pasta sauce - nearly as much as I use of basil. In our house we tend to cook for our taste. :sly: That said, one time we were visiting family in PA and take-out pizza was ordered. Most members of the fam sprinkled extra oregano on each slice before eating. I'd never had it that way, so I tried it. Yum! IF you like oregano, that is.


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## RPCookin

Kayelle said:


> Here we go again about oregano in spaghetti sauce. My own spaghetti sauce always includes dried oregano in it.  If yours doesn't that's fine by me.



I use oregano and/or other similar herbs like thyme, rosemary, marjoram - I like such flavors and see nothing wrong with upping the flavor profile of a simple red sauce.  For pizza I will often add herbs to the crust too.


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## Dawgluver

I also add all sorts of extra herbs to my pasta sauce, whether jarred or home-made.  I especially love fresh ground fennel seed and oregano.


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## Sir_Loin_of_Beef

Kayelle said:


> Here we go again about oregano in spaghetti sauce. My own spaghetti sauce always includes dried oregano in it.  If yours doesn't that's fine by me.


If you enjoy pizza sauce on spaghetti, go for it.


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## Sir_Loin_of_Beef

Andy M. said:


> Marcella Hazan and Mario Batali make their basic tomato sauce with olive oil, onion and tomato and maybe some salt and pepper.


 Which any real Italian will tell you is as it should be.


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## Andy M.

Sir_Loin_of_Beef said:


> If you enjoy pizza sauce on spaghetti, go for it.







Sir_Loin_of_Beef said:


> Which any real Italian will tell you is as it should be.




It's admirable you have firm convictions on what's right and what's not but you should consider there variations that are not wrong, just different. Tomato sauce with oregano is not automatically pizza sauce and nothing else. Lighten up.


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## Whiskadoodle

To oreg or no is not the question.  

And I am unsure how this helps un-confuse Eric in Austin.


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## tenspeed

Whiskadoodle said:


> To oreg or no is not the question.


Groan!


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## jd_1138

To my lay opinion, pasta sauce, marinara sauce and pizza sauce are interchangeable.    Don Pepino's is a good canned pizza sauce.  Also, Gia Russa pizza sauce is pretty good.


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## CharlieD

Kayelle said:


> Here we go again about oregano in spaghetti sauce. My own spaghetti sauce always includes dried oregano in it.  If yours doesn't that's fine by me.




+1.


Sent from my iPhone using Discuss Cooking


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## rodentraiser

I was in Safeway the other day and found a jar of Classico's Spicy Basil and Tomato pasta sauce. I used it on stuffed shells and it was pretty good. In fact, I think that will be my go to for pasta sauce now on.


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## jd_1138

rodentraiser said:


> I was in Safeway the other day and found a jar of Classico's Spicy Basil and Tomato pasta sauce. I used it on stuffed shells and it was pretty good. In fact, I think that will be my go to for pasta sauce now on.



Yeah, I think Classico may be the best of the inexpensive jarred sauces.  It's my go to jarred sauce if I can't buy the locally made stuff or make my own.


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## Termy

I make it different. It takes a while, I have posted this but I guess I can do it again. 

I start with dried rosemary and fennel seed in a bag made from a coffee filter. It boils until the water turns brown. In that time you cut up onion ad garlic, about a half each of big ones and then when the water is brown and doesn't have any particles in it you throw the onions and garlic in, along with a little olive oil and white wine. It all softens up in the water/oil/wine. 

During this time you are putting together the spices, 

1- Oregano
1- Basil
1- Thyme
1- Celery seed
½- Ceyenne ground

Throw in one eight ounce can of tomato sauce, (sugar free) and then the spice right on top. 

Salt to taste AFTER it cooks for a hour. 

Can cook more if desired. Actually you can taste the stuff during varying times and see how spices mature and meld. 

T


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## Roll_Bones

My pizza sauce is a cooked pizza sauce (marinara) unlike most I hear and see about.
We have a great pizza place and they use a cooked sauce as well.
I did not realize until someone told me that that place pizza never gives him heartburn.
He said he gets heartburn everywhere else.
So I asked the pizza place and they did say it was cooked. A marinara.
I knew I was doing something right all along.


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## Chief Longwind Of The North

In marinara, and other tomato-based sauces, those that cause heartburn contain a significant amount of oregano.  It is a member of the mint family.  Mints have medicinal properties.  Basil sooths the tummy, while origami is a muscle relaxer.  It can cause the sphincter muscle at the top of the stomach to relax, causing acid reflux, i.e. heartburn.  Surprisingly, peppers don't seem to have an adverse affect on the stomach, except to cause flatulency and bloating.
How vast the mint family is surprised me.  Some common mints are spearmint, peppermint, oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, catnip, marjoram, and so many others.  So if you are prone to, or gave trouble with acid reflux, gp easy on the oregano.

Seeeeeyal; Chief Longwind of the North


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## GotGarlic

Very interesting, Chief. There are more herbs in the mint family than I would have expected. Here's a list. 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-plants-in-the-family-Lamiaceae-2035853


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