Need some pizza sauce help

[Y-TOWN]

I have been making pizza at home for over 20 years. I never can get a decent, consistent sauce. Just did the tomato paste, water, oregano, garlic recipe available on most boards out of desperation.  It was horrid.

Even tried a can of Contadina Pizza sauce adding oregano, garlic power and a little basil today as well. It was worse than the paste mixture.

I've tried the sauce recipes posted on the home page of this forum, they seem to have little taste to me. I tried full red straight from the can and then doctored - both did not have much taste to me.

I guess I'm looking for the typical hint of oregano taste in the sauce but can't seem to get it right.  My sauce is either to little or to much of the oregano taste.

Anyone have a consistent EZ recipe with some taste they are willing to share?

Thanks in advance

[dinks]

RKOS:
  Good Evening. I happen to have a recipe known as "NEW YORK STYLE PIZZA SAUCE".
Truthfully I HAVE NOT TRIED IT. IF YOU THINK YOU ARE READY FOR ANYTHING I WOULD POST IT FOR YOUR BENEFIT. IF YOU DO NOT CARE FOR IT I WILL GIVE YOU MY RECIPE IT IS VERY VERY VERY THICK YOU NEED A SPOON TO GET IT OUT OF THE JAR. Enjoy the rest of the day my friend.
  ~DINKS.

[Pete-zza]

Rkos,

If you have tried Full Red out of the can, doctored and undoctored, and have not been satisfied, then you might want to move a step up the sauce chain and try using some Penzeys pizza seasoning. A good recipe using that seasoning is fellow member Randy's recipe at Reply #2, at http://www.pmq.com/cgi-bin/tt/index.cgi/read/2422. Penzeys also has a Turkish oregano that fellow member Crusty speaks very highly of. Penzeys products can be ordered online (see http://www.penzeys.com).

I have tried quite a few brands of canned and bottled pizza/pasta sauces on pizza but have not found them to be as good or as fresh tasting as simpler tomato sauces such as those based on fresh-pack tomatoes such as the Escalon 6-in-1s (Stanislaus is also a good choice) with good herbs and spices, maybe some fresh garlic, red pepper flakes, a good extra-virgin olive oil and grated hard cheese (like Parmesan or Romano). You might find it useful to go to the websites of Escalon (http://www.escalon.net/recipes.asp) and Stanislaus (http://www.stanislausfoodproducts.com/recipes/recipeframe.asp) and check out their sauce recipes to see if you can get some good sauce ideas. If those recipes don't look promising to you, then you may have to try making a sauce just like Grandma used to make, with good canned imported Italian tomatoes (such as the San Marzanos), fresh and dried herbs (parsley, oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, etc.), fresh onion and garlic, maybe some wine (a hearty Chianti or red Zinfandel is nice) or a bit of balsamic vinegar, and hours of simmering. That will give you intensity of flavor, whether you chose to use the sauce on pasta or pizza. Oven roasted tomatoes (as recently suggested by fellow member Scott R at Reply #20, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,965.msg9568.html#msg9568) and sun-dried tomatoes also add a lot of flavor and natural sweetness to otherwise bland tomato sauces.

Peter

[scampi]

Hi Rkos, Just take a can of the Full Red or pretty much any plain pizza sauce and add the following you can buy at Costco...2 tablespoons of oregano, 2 teaspoons of granulated garlic, not garlic powder or garlic salt (it's a huge difference), a tablespoon of basil, a teaspoon of red chile flakes, teaspoon of pepper, teaspoon of sugar(optional) and a big splash of olive oil (kirklands from Costco is ok) Stir it up really good, cover it in a container (like a big plastic one) and leave in the fridge 24 hours. Do not even taste it before that because it aint gonna taste very good til the ingrediants merge with the sauce overnight.

[duckjob]

I'll throw out my recipe as it is the one aspect of my pizzas that i have pretty much stopped tinkering with.

28 oz can of 6 in 1's
14 oz can of san marzano chopped tomato's - drained
6 oz can of tomato paste
2 T. of olive oil
1 t. dried turkish oregan
1 t. dried basil
1 t. crushed red pepper
1 t. salt
1 t. fresh ground pepper
1 T. sugar

I mix everything in a food processor, then let it simmer on the stove for about an hour. I'll let it sit over night then i split it into 5 plastic bags and freeze.

Brian

[bortz]

Welcome to the board Mr. Koz and glad you decided to post your thoughts.

For more flavor you may want to try a home made cooked sauce rather than a pre-made or uncooked sauce.  It is difficult to get that perfectly balanced oregano taste from a sauce.  I've been trying for years to get one with the correct balance, not for just oregano but for the correct blend of all spices. Unlike our member Duckjob, I've been satisfied with the dough and it's the sauce I'm constantly tweaking. 

If you like that chain pizza shop type taste, one of the things to watch out for is that you're not spreading the sauce on the dough too thick.  Most chains are kind of skimpy on the sauce, such as pizza hut.  In fact, a copycat pizza hut recipe on the net that's been floating around for years, states that one should use a can of tomato soup as the base for the sauce.  While I don't suggest this, I think the thing to be gleaned from that recipe is that the sauce is thin, aka watery.  Pizza hut sauce is rather bland to my taste buds however.

For a robust home made tasting sauce, you may want to try the "Lentini sauce" I've posted elsewhere here a few weeks back.  It has a traditional old world Italian taste, which I liked growing up but doesn't do much for me today.

To get your perfect sauce, I would suggest starting with a 28oz. can of the Stanislaus and just set up 5 or 6 tupperware containers. Fill them all with some of the stan sauce and try differing amounts of spices in the containers until you pinpoint which amount of oregano pleases your palate. Once you get the oregano down, you can build off of that, taking one spice at a time to get where you want to go.  This can be quite time consuming but a lot can be learned from this method.  Once you get spice quantities perfected, then move on to overnight refrigeration and it's effects, then cooking of the sauce and it's effects. Then, move on to differing amounts of moisture and how thick versus thin spreading onto the crust effects things. This is the route I'm starting to take with the Stan full red I just bought.  Sometimes you have to start at ground zero to really get what YOU want.

[scampi]

Hey Bortz, I think you hit the nail on the head regarding just experimenting because we all have different tastes and what may taste good to my 4 kids might not be what someone else likes. My sauce is a fast throw together one unlike most people here who cook their sauces, which to me tastes a lot better but the tradeoff is that you are going to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, which I don't have. To give you an example, if I have a lot of time I make salsa from scratch and there is no comparison between that and anything you have ever tasted in a store. I just make more pizza than salsa so I do it the fast way. But other recipes here are better than mine, especially when you cook the sauce..just my opinion

[DKM]

Start with someting simple.

Soften some diced onion and garlic in some olive oil over medium heat.

Add some basil, salt, pepper, sugar, oregano. 

Write down you messurements.

Taste it.

Do any minor adjustments that may be needed for the moment and then use it for whatever it was being made for (pizza, meatloaf, pasta)

Take notes after you eat it.  Want it less sweat? Cut back on the sugar.  Want it sweeter?  Try browning the onion and garlic or adding more sugar.  Want some heat? Try adding some red pepper flakes.  Have some fun, with it.  Most importantly make a couple of really bad batches.  If you don't your not trying hard enough.

DKM