Basic Pizza Sauce

Printable version

To compliment my last post I decided to make my own pizza sauce to go along with my basic pizza dough. 

The real secret to great pizza is in the sauce. Usually, I pick something other than pizza sauce as the foundation of a gourmet pie and build the flavors from there, but there are times that I like to stay traditional and make normal pizza. Personally, I only like a thin layer of sauce, too much can ruin the experience for me. When I make pizza sauce I keep it simple and sweet. Literally, I like to sweeten the sauce a little with sugar to balance out the acidity of the tomato.

I always start with a little onion and garlic. Then the main element – tomato – joins the party. Crushed or pureed tomatoes from the can usually does the trick. I finish everything off with the sugar and Italian seasoning. When I apply it, I do it sparingly! Just a thin layer is all that is needed.

Making pizza sauce is simple, easy and allows you to build the foundation of the pizza the way you want.

BEHIND THIS BITE
I would have used crushed tomatoes for this recipe but in the town of Churubusco Indiana, population 2,000, there are 2 grocery stores and neither had crushed tomatoes, so I went with tomato puree.

'Busco is the closest municipality to my home and it seems like they never have the exact ingredient I’m looking for. I usually go the other direction and travel 2 miles further to a Walmart just because they have more items on the shelves. The last time I made the mistake of going to 'Busco for a missing ingredient it was chipotle peppers. To my dismay there were none to be found.

When I came up empty I decided I would never go to 'Busco for a missing ingredient again. I should have stayed with that philosophy, and to my dismay crushed tomatoes were nowhere to be found in the thriving metropolis known as Turtle Town U.S.A. The pureed tomatoes worked just fine, so I guess it wasn’t a total disaster.

It’s not all bad though, to the credit of the IGA store in 'Busco, they have the best meat counter in the region - with actual meat cutters and a service counter where you chose the cut you want and they wrap it right in front of you. So, the situation is not horrific, just limited.

Eat well, cook often ...

THE RECIPE

Makes 3 cups
1/2 C Onion, diced
1 Tbs Garlic, minced
2 Cans Tomato puree (15 oz each)
2 Tbs Sugar
2 tsp Italian seasoning

Sauté vegetables, paste
Over medium heat sauté onion in a little olive oil until soft, 3 to 4 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Add garlic, cook 1 minute more.

Add puree, seasoning
Stir in tomato puree and add Italian seasoning and sugar, stir until well incorporated. Season to taste. Bring mixture to a simmer and cook 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Bite-Size Sausage Pizza Sliders

In 1921, the first White Castle was opened in Wichita, Kansas by Billy Ingram. It was the first fast food burger place in the U.S. The name White Caste was chosen for specific reasons. The "White" was for purity and the "Castle" for strength. It was marketed that way to an American public that was weary of ground beef because of Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle, which exposed unsanitary and inhumane conditions in the meatpacking industry. At the time, pork was the most popular household meat.

White Castle proved to be a resounding success and became famous for selling tiny little hamburgers known today as "sliders" – a name derived from the ease with which the sandwiches “slide” down the throat.

For this recipe, I make a pizza slider from pre-made sausage biscuits found at most grocery stores. Pepperoni, pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese are added to the little sausage biscuit, creating a mini-pizza sandwich that should “slide” down like a White Castle burger.

BEHIND THIS BITE

Simplicity. That is what I wanted to achieve with this recipe. I made this snack in a large quantity and it was as easy as cooking gets (beyond heating up frozen dinners). It's really meant to be a snack for Sunday's start of the NFL season. It's a true Man Bite – and a great snack to enjoy with a group of beer-drinking football fans as they settle in for a Sunday full of grid iron battles!

For the newspaper version of the column I didn't have the space to mention the real intention behind this bite. I'm ok with that because I thought the history of the slider is actually better journalism, and I will choose an Upton Sinclair reference over football parties any day - I'm crazy like that.

Eat well, cook often ...