Published: 2026-05-18 | 9
Most home pizza cooks ruin their pizza at the sauce. They use bad tomatoes. They simmer the sauce for 30 minutes. They add basil and oregano and garlic and onion powder and red wine. By the time the sauce hits the dough, it's not pizza sauce anymore, it's pasta sauce.
Real pizza sauce is the easiest part of a pizza. Open a can. Add salt. Done. The 6-8 minute bake in your oven cooks the sauce exactly enough. Anything more is overcomplicating the simplest component of the build.
This is the complete guide. By the end you'll know which tomatoes to buy, why uncooked beats cooked, when to break the rule, and how the sauce changes across pizza styles.
I know this sounds wrong if you've been making pizza any other way. Cooking the sauce concentrates it, deepens the color, and makes it taste like pasta sauce, exactly what you don't want on a pizza. Real NY pizza sauce is uncooked. Real Neapolitan sauce is uncooked. Even most Detroit-style "red top" sauce is barely cooked.
Why it works: the pizza bakes for 6-8 minutes at 550°F (NY), 90 seconds at 900°F (Neapolitan), or 12-15 minutes at 500°F (Detroit). In all three cases, the sauce gets cooked DURING the bake. Pre-cooking the sauce just double-cooks it, which destroys the fresh tomato flavor that defines great pizza.
Test this yourself. Make two identical pizzas, one with uncooked sauce (just crushed tomatoes + salt), one with sauce simmered for 30 minutes. Side by side, the difference is dramatic. The uncooked sauce tastes bright, fresh, and tomato-forward. The cooked sauce tastes flat and one-dimensional.
If you do nothing else right with your sauce, get the tomatoes right. Bad tomatoes can't be fixed by a great recipe. Great tomatoes barely need a recipe.
The hierarchy:
Avoid: generic store-brand crushed tomatoes (often have citric acid added), "San Marzano-style" tomatoes (Roma variety, not the real thing), and anything labeled as "pizza sauce" in the supermarket (pre-seasoned, usually badly).
For basic NY-style sauce, kosher salt is the only seasoning you need. About 1 teaspoon per 14-ounce can of crushed tomatoes. Taste, adjust.
If your tomatoes taste too acidic (some San Marzano cans run sharp), add a small pinch of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon max. The sugar doesn't sweeten the sauce; it balances the acidity. Use Bianco DiNapoli and you won't need sugar at all.
Don't add: garlic, onion, oregano, basil, red pepper, olive oil, or anything else to your default sauce. Those are toppings. The pizza already has them. Or you can add them on top of the sauce when building the pizza, but they don't belong in the sauce itself.
There are three legitimate cases where you cook or season the sauce:
Detroit pizza traditionally uses a cooked tomato sauce dolloped ON TOP of the cheese in stripes. The cooking concentrates it slightly, making it thick enough to hold its shape on the cheese. Simmer crushed tomatoes with garlic, oregano, and basil for 10-15 minutes. See my Detroit pizza guide.
Some NY pizzerias add a small amount of dried oregano, fresh basil, and a tiny crush of garlic to the uncooked sauce. Still uncooked, just lightly seasoned. The herby pizza sauce variation on this site has the proportions. Optional and personal preference.
Grandma and Sicilian pizzas sometimes use a lightly cooked sauce (simmered 10 minutes with garlic and olive oil) because the sauce goes on top of the cheese, similar to Detroit. The cooking concentrates it enough to sit on top without bleeding.
Bianco DiNapoli crushed tomatoes, Chris Bianco's brand, available at Whole Foods and most well-stocked grocery stores. San Marzano DOP (with the official seal) is a great runner-up. Generic store-brand crushed tomatoes are usually disappointing.
Uncooked for NY style, Neapolitan, and bar pie, the 6-8 minute oven bake cooks it exactly enough. Cooked for Detroit-style red top sauce (which sits on top of the cheese and needs to be concentrated). Default to uncooked unless the recipe specifically calls for cooking.
Usually no. Good-quality tomatoes (Bianco DiNapoli, real San Marzano DOP) don't need sugar. If your tomatoes taste sharp or acidic, add 1/4 teaspoon of sugar per can to balance, not to sweeten.
1/3 cup for a 14-inch NY-style pizza. 1/4 cup for a 12-inch Neapolitan. More than that and your pizza will be soggy in the middle.
Yes, in tomato season with great fresh tomatoes. Blanch, peel, deseed, hand-crush, salt. But canned high-quality tomatoes (like Bianco DiNapoli) are picked at peak ripeness and packed within hours, usually better than out-of-season fresh tomatoes.
Drain half the liquid from the can before using. The drained sauce is the correct consistency for pizza. Don't simmer to reduce, that cooks the sauce.
5 days for uncooked sauce stored in glass or plastic. 1 week for cooked Detroit-style sauce. Freeze in 1/3-cup portions if you have extra.
You can, but it's not the same. Marinara is cooked and seasoned for pasta, too concentrated, too herby, too jammy for pizza. Real pizza sauce is brighter and looser. Use crushed tomatoes + salt for actual pizza sauce.
American NY pizzerias use a heavier hand with salt and tend to leave the sauce slightly chunky. Italian pizzaiolos use less salt, hand-crush whole San Marzanos, and add a swirl of olive oil before baking. Different traditions, both valid.
For basic NY style, no, just salt. For an herby variation, dried oregano + a small amount of fresh basil works. See my pizza sauce recipe for both versions. Don't go overboard with herbs, pizza sauce should taste like tomatoes.
Pizza sauce is the easiest pillar of pizza. Don't overcomplicate it.
Dave