What is the main difference between pizza sauce and marinara sauce?

Pizza sauce tends to benefit from not being cooked prior to being used on the pizza. Kuan posted a link on this once that was quite interesting. Basically, the more you cook the sauce, the more the distinct tomato flavor wanes. As sauce is the biggest contributor to flavor in a pizza, the more distinct flavor you can bring to the sauce the better.

Cook's Illustrated default sauce is uncooked, just based in canned crushed tomatoes.

Certainly many people cook their pizza sauce and have good results; that's more like the marinara you mention.

Abe,

A marinara sauce is a fairly specific thing. "Pizza sauce," as you seem to mean the term, can be just about any sort of tomato sauce of any consistency you like -- from straight tomato paste; to a marinara; to an arrabiata; to a marinara; to a concasse; to sliced, fresh tomatoes, to red enchilada sauce; to... well you get the idea.

With the fresh sauces like concasse or tomato slices, you'll need to control the moisture; and with the super thick sauces, like straight paste, you may want to dilute them a little in order to spread them thin.

When I make pizza at home, I usually use something like my "Basic Tomato Sauce," which I think was already posted on CT ... but, I'll start a thread on recipe and repost it. Something that versatile is worth printing and out and saving.

BDL

PS. The most common mistake with homemade pizza is too much sauce. Use a light hand, my friend.

Not going to get involved with a pizza or marinara "flame thrower" but........

Where I come from.......Pizza sauce is a blend of crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce and....depending on which school of pizza making you attended in Chicago.....i.e. Giordanno's, Nancy's, Stone Cottage Pub, Gino's, Lou Malnatti's, etc....... The seasoning are either dusted over the top or mixed in the sauce. Out of the one's I named I worked for all but Gino's and Lou Malnati's. By the way...the seasonings were always oregano, salt, pepper and Romano Cheese. From time to time I will make a pre blended sauce that has the the tomato mix I mentioned, fresh chopped garlic, olive oil, oregano, salt amd pepper. Definitely a distinct difference when adding garlic.

Marinara is the same blend of tomatoes but is cooked and has olive oil, onions, garlic and Basil, salt and pepper and sometimes ground fennel seed or crushed red pepper but.....no oregano. :peace:

Good timing! I just made some of my thin crispy dough for pizza tomorrow. Have it setting on the counter for a nice long ferment. I go with a medium thick fresh tomato sauce with a sprinkling of herbs over the top.

My pizza sauce is pretty simple. I use 6 - 1 crushed tomatoes, canned by some company whose name I can't recall at the moment. Season with salt, pepper, oregano and sometimes basil, spread on pizza. No precooking.

My marina starts out with onions and garlic sweated in olive, then pizza sauce added along with more seasonings, often rosemary and crused red pepper.

Currently my pizza style leans toward thinner, crispy crusts with minimal sauce and toppings, but not overly sparse:




Now back in my early years the soggy, grease soaked mass of cheese and a dozen or two toppings was the way to go.


mjb.

Now that looks wonderful !

Does anyone add olive oil to the surface of the dough before putting the sauce on top ?

Yes, Learned it from my mom. I always think of her when I do it. I've seen it done by some and not by some others. Certainly for pizza bianca, at least I think that's the name.

Pizza Sauce

For our regular pizza sauce I take a 28 ounce can of San Marzano brand crushed tomaotes and drain them in a strainer for a few minutes and taste them for any bitterness. After that it's into the food processor with a teaspoon of greek oregano, half teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teasp of crushed red pepper and depending on if they are too bitter up to a teasp of sugar. I pulse them about 10 quick bursts so they still have some bits of tomato in it. I make a pretty slack dough 24 hours before our planned pizza and let it rise in the fridge, it makes a thin crisp crust when it is cooked at high temps. For cheese we use a whole milk fresh mozzarella that is sliced hours before use and drained very well on towels so we don't end up with big puddles on top when it melts. We have a small pizza oven that is capable of reaching 800 degrees and when it is fully heated the pizza comes out within 2 minutes. We both grew up in NYC and when we moved south many years ago the one thing we missed more than any other was pizza, now I can make one just as good as we used to be able to get right on any corner up there. I tried to post a picture of some but all I managed was a link I think. Cooking I can do.......computer stuff not so much!:smiles:

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q...ushroom039.jpg

I'm jealous, wish I had an 800 degree oven! One thing I do which I saw on a pizza forum is to put one oven rack on the bottom position and another in position right above it. On the upper rack goes my 12" cast iron skillet. After preheating the oven for 45 minutes - hour, depending on how long it takes to prep the dough and toppings, the pizza gets slid into the oven on the lower rack.

Having the thermal mass of the big skillet just an inch or two from the top seems to help the pie cook faster, reducing the risk of getting a soggy crust.


mjb.

Pizza

The oven is a small one with 2 small chambers in it but it does a famtastic job, if it ever breaks on us I will cry. Before we got this it took nearly 90 minutes to heat up our regular oven to make a pizza.....a horrible waste of all that energy. This little oven is only 16 inches square and sits right on the kitchen counter and uses regular household current so it's great for us. It only makes about a 12 inch pizza as opposed to the 16 inch from our regular oven but as fast as the little oven turns them out it isn't a problem. I really want a wood fired oven in the backyard but can't swing it right now so am happy with this solution.;)

I'll never understand why oregano is such a controversial ingredient in italian cooking. I'm not scared to put oregano in my "marinara" sauce, but I don't like to call it marinara. The word marinara conjures up bad memories of places like olive garden and other "italian" restaurants that think all food should be buried under a blanket of thick red goopy sauce.

Although I've used canned tomatoes in the past I've been using fresh tomatoes from the summer that I slow roasted in the oven with garlic and then froze. I make my pizza sauce with olive oil, my frozen crushed tomatoes, chopped onion, loads of pepper and oregano, and simmer for about 10 minutes. I take it off the heat and add loads of fresh basil. We each make our own personal pizzas and I like mine thin with little sauce. DH likes his thin with more sauce, and sprinkles chili flakes on the sauce before adding toppings.

However we both like sprinkling another dose of oregano on the pizza right before it goes into the oven.

As far as I am concerned, pizza is pasta, and pasta has to have a rich spicy sweet tangy slightly thick sauce and enough to make the pizza look likes its got plenty of sauce on it.

Yes, I always paint my dough with EVOO, becuase it acts as a waterproofing of the dough to keep the sauce, veggie juices, cheese fat, from making the dough gooey, wet, unedible. Oven always preheated (and 1/2" thick pizza stone) to 550 for at least 1/2 hour after coming up to temperature before loading the pizza onto the stone. Takes about 9-10 minutes. I use 12oz of homemade dough, usually it sits overnight in the fridge or gets frozen. I make enough dough for 3 pizzas at a time and always use organic bread flour from the organic food store. More gluten.

Oregano is a pizza spice. Period. That's what an Italian chef told me once. I only use it for pizza sauce (but not alone, I have a blend of spices, not too complicated) that I mix in with my onions and garlic that I've fried up in a big pot until just translucent. Then I add the dry spices. The oil acts like a solvent and extracts flavor from the dry spices. Then I add the tomatoes/tomato sauce, and the cooking time doesn't take too long as the flavor has been extracted from the herbs already. Saves energy and time too. (The marinara sauce is made w/o oregano. I sprinkle some oregano and some chopped dry spearmint ( a trick I learned from a kid eating Jeno's pizza mixes which used to have a little packet of spices to sprinkle on the pizza. I used my taste buds, my nose and my Gilbert Microscope to analyze the contents of that packet and the secret was that spearmint. Oh what it does to the pizza!!!!)

It gets canned as I make 20 quart batches and try to can it in quarts for other pasta dishes, and pints for using on pizza. I suppose it is a marinara sauce, but I like it for almost any thing! Secret: 9 lbs of chopped onion to 9 oz. of chopped garlic.

It is also medicine. All those onions and garlic make you feel a man!

doc :-0)

Tonight's pizza, thin cracker crust. The dough sat on the counter for a 20 hour ferment then into the fridge for another 24 hours.



like normal my pies are freeform :lol: the dough is stiff enough to require rolling out and I don't worry to much about shape. Topped with a thin coat of thick homemade tomato sauce and a sprinkle of herbs. Mushrooms, cheese then pepperoni to finish it off.

In my experiences it has it's place, very small place but a place none the less. I've only in a couple of dishes. Chicken Cacciatore for one, a couple of seafood dishes, salad and salad dressing and not to forget mentioning pizza. Marinara was stricly Basil. In fact Basil was used frequently and in copeous amounts in many family dishes that had tomatoes or pasta. The only time we ever used basil on a pizza was Pizza Margherita.

I shoud add an edit.....This is not to say that we don't have use for it in non-Italian dishes. Chicken, Lamb, Mexican and Greek foods that are prepared at home frequently see it's use. ;)

Hmmm, it's the most frequently used dried herb in my pantry, and it feels like I won the lottery when I find it fresh. It goes on everything - chicken breasts, steak, every kind of roast, any kind of saute, I like it on virtually everything. I have many italian friends who love it as well and use it as frequently as I do. The only people who seem to dislike oregano are italian-americans but I can never figure out why.

Ought to tell i've read a lot of useful advices and info from this topic thank you
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I want to find the best free clipart in the world!

Oregano, n that is it! I've managed n Italian restaurant for years n anybody that puts oregano in their marinara hasn't a clue what they're doing!

My pizza sauce is very basic but people love it.
2 large cans of whole tomatos
10 cloves of fresh garlic
A handful of fresah basil or oragano (your choice)

Hit this mixture with a stick blender a volla. Tasty simple pizza sauce. Needs no cooking time.
If you want to step this recipe up a knotch. Confit your garlic in evoo at a low temp till your garlic is golden brown. Replace the fresh garlic with your now confitted garlic. Don't throw away the oil. What you have done is infused this oil with the garlic. Try brushing your dough with your garlic oil before you put you pizza sauce on. This will help your crust from not going soggy. Also a little drizzle of the confitted garlic oil on top of the pizza when it comes out give your pizza a nice garlic arroma.

Hope you enjoy