Uncooked Pizza Sauce
Pizza · Pizza Oven · Sauces · Italian · Quick & Easy · Vegan
The Neapolitan way with tomato sauce is to not cook it: whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand and salted, and cooked only once — on the pizza, in the oven.
Untested: I have not cooked this one yet — the pizza oven has not been bought. It is here for the Pizza Ovens dive, and it is adapted from the source named in the Notes.
Ingredients
- 1 (14-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, San Marzano DOP or other Italian plum tomatoes
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
Directions
- Drain. Tip the tomatoes into a fine-mesh strainer and let the juice drain away.
- Crush. Break the tomatoes up with your fingers, squeezing out the watery juice from the insides.
- Season. Stir in the salt. For a smooth sauce, blend it briefly; for the Neapolitan texture, leave it hand-crushed.
- Use about 2 tablespoons for a 10-inch pizza, or 60–80 g for a Neapolitan Margherita. Don’t cook it first.
Notes
Sources Quantities from J. Kenji López-Alt, “Hacker-Free Neapolitan Pizza for a Home Kitchen,” Serious Eats (he blends the drained tomatoes smooth). The AVPN’s rules ask for peeled tomatoes — San Marzano from the Agro Sarnese-Nocerino, or other long Roma-type tomatoes — “preferably crushed by hand,” which avoids “breaking the seeds which would give a bitter taste,” and allow no “further heat treatment.”
Why uncooked A pizza oven cooks the tomato in 90 seconds. Cooked sauces taste flat and jammy on a Neapolitan pizza; raw tomato stays bright.
The Pizza Ovens dive on the Food site covers the oven, the fire and the dough in depth.