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What do quality pizzerias do to their sauce that home cooks don't?

25K views 73 replies 30 participants last post by  grande 
#1 ·
I've tried a few different tomato sauce recipes from pizza books aimed at home cooks and they're okay, but never as special as a good pizzeria.
 
#4 ·
NYC pizza makes me think of sugar, they taste very sweet to me and very overcooked like marinara. They also have lots of dried oregano in them, can't forget that.

It doesn't have to be complicated. Good tomatoes, fresh garlic, and fresh herbs. I put a little onion in mine and good olive oil.
 
#6 ·
NYC pizza makes me think of sugar, they taste very sweet to me and very overcooked like marinara. They also have lots of dried oregano in them, can't forget that.

It doesn't have to be complicated. Good tomatoes, fresh garlic, and fresh herbs. I put a little onion in mine and good olive oil.
marinara being a quick sauce with no sugar added... :s mariners sauce.
 
#13 ·
Yeah, no doubt about that. The thread was about "quality" pizzerias, though. Depending what the OP qualifies as "good", of course. Is my palate so out of tune with general taste that I don't see the point in it here?
"I've tried a few different tomato sauce recipes from pizza books aimed at home cooks and they're okay, but never as special as a good pizzeria."

And good pizzerias use MSG also.

The next time you have a spectacularly delicious meal in a fancy restaurant, you can be enjoying MSG also. And I don't mean in a Chinese restaurant. MSG is everywhere.

dcarch
 
#14 ·
I can't speak for other regions or styles, but the great NY style pizzas use an un-cooked sauce, usually just some crushed tomatoes mixed with a few herbs. The big solution over at pizzamaking.com is the Escalon 6/1 canned tomatoes, and i can't argue with it at all. The crust with a little rim of caramelized sweet tomato and maybe a hint of garlic is one of lives simplest pleasures.
 
#19 ·
I made pizzas for years - no msg, no cooking the sauce, I added a little sugar, or honey, oregano, basil, parsley, salt, pepper.  That was made with fresh bulk/canned tomato sauce - #10 cans.  Pizza sauce is the only tomato thing I use oregano in - it tastes like pizza to me.  To make the spaghetti sauce we took that and added some paste and cooked that down a little till it tasted "right".  
 
#20 ·
I never use the same tomato sauce on a pizza twice. Unless I have to. 

Raw with some oregano, garlic, salt and olive oil and stick blender it. 

Leftover pasta sauce, whatever is around and seems to pair with whatever toppings I'm using. 

I hate store pizza sauce. It's always too sweet - at least in NYC - but have noticed MSG. Even the peruvian rotisserie chicken place uses it (I asked). 
 
#21 ·
ordo,

This recipe looks complicated and expensive to make when Little Caesar's sells a pizza for $5.00.  Is it worth the time, money, and effort to do it yourself?  Have you made it yourself and find it is worth your time?  If yes, I might try it when I can (on a diet now).

Lily
 
#22 ·
Lilygardener: yes i did it and many variations over the years. But the fact is that i like just a little sauce on pizzas -what i love about pizza is principally the bread- and may be the best ones were done with very simple "sauces" even with simple fresh or confit tomatoes.

With sauce:


With confit cherries:


With fresh tomatoes:

 
#23 ·
The common mistake that most home cooks make when cooking with tomatoes in any sauce is being impatient. With tomatoes, the longer and slower you cook them for, the better the results.

In ragus, pizza sauces, chillis etc, cooking out the raw fresh tomato taste adds natural sweetness, earthiness and body. By extension, there's really no need to add sugar if you cook a tomato sauce for 6-8 hours as tomatoes naturally contain a huge amount of fructose - it just needs coaxing out.

So to answer your question, the biggest reason why most home cooked pizza sauces don't taste as good as a pizzerias is because pizzerias, through experience and knowledge, cook their sauces slower and longer.
 
#24 ·
ordo,

This recipe looks complicated and expensive to make when Little Caesar's sells a pizza for $5.00. Is it worth the time, money, and effort to do it yourself? Have you made it yourself and find it is worth your time? If yes, I might try it when I can (on a diet now).

Lily
Scratch made sauce vs Little Caesar's???? Really?? That has to be the worst excuse for pizza there is on the market.
 
#25 ·
I don't know any pizzeria that makes a sauce like this using these ingredients.

  I do not consider Little Caesar's  even pizza its tomato bread. You pay $5.00 and you get $5.00.
 
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#26 ·
The common mistake that most home cooks make when cooking with tomatoes in any sauce is being impatient. With tomatoes, the longer and slower you cook them for, the better the results.

In ragus, pizza sauces, chillis etc, cooking out the raw fresh tomato taste adds natural sweetness, earthiness and body. By extension, there's really no need to add sugar if you cook a tomato sauce for 6-8 hours as tomatoes naturally contain a huge amount of fructose - it just needs coaxing out.

So to answer your question, the biggest reason why most home cooked pizza sauces don't taste as good as a pizzerias is because pizzerias, through experience and knowledge, cook their sauces slower and longer.
For most pizzas, the sauce is the biggest flavor component. And it's a more common mistake to over-sauce a pizza than to under sauce it. Long cooked tomatoes don't taste particularly like tomatoes any more. They've lost their acid impact as well. In a pizza, the primary place you have to cut through the fat and dairy and other toppings is in the sauce. You need to preserve the acidity of the tomato and the most tomato flavor.

10 or so years ago, Kuan posted a link about this where the least cooked but canned tomatoes made the best pizza sauce. I can't find that original post nor the link though. Since that time, Cook's illustrated has taken the same course and espouses canned crushed tomatoes as the basis for the sauce and no cooking. And I've come to agree.

Add some fresh minced garlic, salt, pepper, oregano. That's it, no cooking. I save the olive oil for the crust, brushing the formed dough with olive oil before saucing. This keeps the sauce from wetting the dough and lets the dough bake properly.

The thinner your crust, the less of everything you put on it. And with pizza, less is usually more anyway.

Less cooking of the sauce, keep the sauce SIMPLE. Less sauce on the pizza. Light with the cheese and toppings, keeps everything in the right balance.
 
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