Sauce Recipes for Chicago Thin Crust

[vcb]

I did a search and didn't see a thread for this, so I'm starting a new one.

Do you have a "go-to" sauce recipe for Chicago Thin Crust Pizza?

PLEASE POST IT IN THIS THREAD.

On a similar note, I watched Diners Drive-Ins and Dives on Food Network the other night and they were showing the Pizza episode.
They had closeups of the sauce at Vito & Nick's in all it's HD glory, and I noticed that there seemed to be no visible spices in it.
Could they be just using Puree or Paste plus water to thin it out? Maybe adding sugar if it's not sweet enough?

Annnnnnnyway...
Here's the sauce that I use for thin crust:

[wahoo88]

Wow, there has been discussion about a thread like this over here (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,29736.20.html) in the past 12 hours or so.  Is this really a coincidence?

[vcb]

no coincidence whatsoever. 

I constantly see people complain that we spend so much time on the the dough, and rarely post sauce recipes, so it makes sense to have a place to post them. 

[CDNpielover]

The famous Red's Savoy Inn sauce (at least according to the University of Minnesota website)
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=17732.0

Pizza Sauce from Red's Savoy Pizza chefs

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
Three 28 oz. cans of whole peeled tomatoes or 15-18 stewed tomatoes
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon fresh basil
1 tablespoon fresh oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 small bay leaf
1 teaspoon fennel seed

Directions:

In a large skillet, melt butter with the oil. Add the onion, celery and garlic and saute until soft and transparent.  Add tomatoes and stir until smooth.  Add remaining ingredients and bring to a slow simmer.  Simmer for 30-60 minutes.  Remove bay leave and spread the sauce on your prepared pizza dough.

[dmckean44]

Here it is converted to 1 28 oz can of tomatoes since that's what most people will probably do.

2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp butter
8 tbsp chopped onion
1/3rd clove minced garlic
2 tsp grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp fresh basil
1 tsp fresh oregano
1/3 tsp salt
1/3 tsp sugar
dash of black pepper
half a small bay leaf
1/3 teaspoon fennel seed
1 28oz can whole peeled tomatoes

[Aimless Ryan]

Wow, there has been discussion about a thread like this over here (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,29736.20.html) in the past 12 hours or so.  Is this really a coincidence?

Most genuinely good pizzas don't require an elaborate sauce. Good pizzas use a quality tomato product with minimal spices or flavorings added. Usually when a pizzeria's sauce has a lot of added flavorings, it's mostly in an effort to mask a crappy tomato product. Still, having said that, I pretty much always take the time to express my sauce recipe for any pizza I document here.

I just don't think it's very important in most cases, and my sauce recipes should be interpreted as a general guideline for recreating the pizza as I made it, not necessarily how the joint I may be trying to clone makes it. For example, my Tommy's sauce. Is it close to actual Tommy's sauce? I have no idea because the flavor of Tommy's pizza mostly comes from the crust (and possibly other components of the pizza). Besides, Tommy's sauce is crap. But looking at the big picture: My Tommy's pizzas taste the same regardless of whether I really try to get the sauce right.

On the other hand, I think Donatos sauce helps define the pizza. And their sauce is nothing more than tomato paste and water, with a little bit of salt, basil, and probably sugar (which I think is a recent change). And it tastes (or seems to taste) different on the pizza than it tastes when you eat a spoonful of it uncooked. (And I don't mean to imply that Donatos makes a great pizza just because they use a simple sauce, or even that they make a great pizza at all.)

[vcb]

Garvey's "Pizza Factory" sauce recipe uses a Contadina tomato paste and water base.
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17662.msg171274.html#msg171274

It's probably more cost effective for pizza restaurants to use watered down paste than to pay more $ for puree.

KEEP POSTING RECIPES AND LINKS TO RECIPES! 

You're listening to Chicago Sauce Talk on PZZA radio, PIZZATOWN, USA!
Stay tuned for more sauce!
 

[Garvey]

Most genuinely good pizzas don't require an elaborate sauce. Good pizzas use a quality tomato product with minimal spices or flavorings added.

I disagree.  Having grown up in the Chicago area, where Chicago thin is king, I found that the sauce varies greatly from place to place, becoming part of the distinct flavor signature.  An herbal sauce is very much part and parcel of this style of pizza. And the Southside has a few sweet sauces, like Aurelio's--but each one is totally different.  It is a point of pride for a family owned pizza restaurant to have developed their own red sauce, crust, housemade sausage, etc. 

Maybe outside of the Chicagoland area, a blander, forgettable sauce is the norm, but this is the Chicago Style board.  If you don't like sauce, no one held a gun to your head: you are free to skip this forum topic. 

[dmckean44]

It's probably more cost effective for pizza restaurants to use watered down paste than to pay more $ for puree.

The history of tomato paste in Italy goes back hundreds of years and was originally a way to preserve tomatoes for use through the winter months. Tomato paste isn't necessarily an inferior product to puree. It's a concentrated product of tomato solids and you end up with way more of the top notes of the tomatoes. Since it's a concentrated product, adding water is simply re-hydrating.

[Aimless Ryan]

It's probably more cost effective for pizza restaurants to use watered down paste than to pay more $ for puree.

Oh, there's no doubt about that. Not only with product costs, but also with shipping (or delivery) costs. One case of heavily concentrated tomato product makes about the equivalent quantity of sauce as two or three cases of ready-to-use tomato product, but it only requires paying for one case (in both food cost and shipping cost).

For some reason, even though Donatos uses diluted paste for sauce, it's shipped to the stores ready-to-use in boxed bags. (This is probably because they need special bags to function with their unique dispensing system.) Pizza Hut (in the early 90s, and probably today) used very heavily concentrated tomato product, to which they added water and a spice packet in-store. I know how a couple other places do it, and it seems to be more of a random decision, rather than a decision based on efficiency (and thus price) or quality. Some of these methods (like Donatos) puzzle me, because it seems like they're just throwing away money.

[Aimless Ryan]

Since it's a concentrated product, adding water is simply re-hydrating.

That's not true. When you cook a tomato (which is part of the process of concentrating tomatoes), you change the flavor considerably. Ever notice how tomatoes are red but paste is maroon? That's because they're not the same thing, and never will be again.

[dmckean44]

My point was, it's not meant to be consumed at full strength.

[vcb]

That's not true. When you cook a tomato (which is part of the process of concentrating tomatoes), you change the flavor considerably. Ever notice how tomatoes are red but paste is maroon? That's because they're not the same thing, and never will be again.

Yeah. Paste is sweeter than puree, which is what you want in a Chicago thin crust sauce.
It's probably why I have to add sugar to my puree.
 

[dogboy]

I am very much into using a strawberry or grape jelly in my mixture of tomatos. Wasn't a big fan of granulated sugar but maybe I need to dissolve the sugar first and try it.

[pythonic]

I disagree.  Having grown up in the Chicago area, where Chicago thin is king, I found that the sauce varies greatly from place to place, becoming part of the distinct flavor signature.  An herbal sauce is very much part and parcel of this style of pizza. And the Southside has a few sweet sauces, like Aurelio's--but each one is totally different.  It is a point of pride for a family owned pizza restaurant to have developed their own red sauce, crust, housemade sausage, etc. 

Maybe outside of the Chicagoland area, a blander, forgettable sauce is the norm, but this is the Chicago Style board.  If you don't like sauce, no one held a gun to your head: you are free to skip this forum topic.

I disagree as well.  It's these sauces that set the pizza places apart.  NY style sauce however may be the exception.

[wahoo88]

Maybe outside of the Chicagoland area, a blander, forgettable sauce is the norm, but this is the Chicago Style board.  If you don't like sauce, no one held a gun to your head: you are free to skip this forum topic. 

No need to insult other styles of pizza Garvey.  Less ingredients does not equate to a "blander, forgettable sauce". Starting from paste, yes, but not for all tomato products.  I would argue that the Chicago styles of pizza probably evolved from a lack of fresh, quality ingredients.  The addition of herbs and spices to the Chicago sauce was most likely to add some much needed interest to an otherwise boring paste-based sauce.  This is not to say that Chicago sauce is inferior, but I would find it hard to believe that anyone prefers straight tomato paste to good san marzanos out of the can.  Neapolitan pizza (and some NY) is all about preserving the flavors in the ingredients, while Chicago pizza is more about taking less exotic (read:worse) ingredients and making the final product greater than the sum of its parts.  There is beauty to be found in both philosophies.

[vcb]

Hi. 
THIS THREAD IS FOR SAUCE RECIPES FOR CHICAGO THIN CRUST PIZZA.
If you don't have a recipe (or link to a recipe),
or don't have anything constructive to add regarding
the making of sauce for use specifically for Chicago Thin Crust Pizza,
this may not be the thread for you.

 

We now return to the sauce currently in progress...

KEEP POSTING THE SAUCE RECIPES PEOPLE!
 

[wahoo88]

Hi. 
THIS THREAD IS FOR SAUCE RECIPES FOR CHICAGO THIN CRUST PIZZA.
If you don't have a recipe (or link to a recipe),
or don't have anything constructive to add regarding
the making of sauce for use specifically for Chicago Thin Crust Pizza,
this may not be the thread for you.

 

We now return to the sauce currently in progress...



KEEP POSTING THE SAUCE RECIPES PEOPLE!
 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cat-cora/easy-pizza-sauce-recipe/index.html

Now that I've got my obligatory recipe out of the way...

What fun is a forum that only lists recipes?  Isn't discussion why we all come here?

[nick57]

No sauce is right or wrong. Most of the time, it is what you grew up eating and loving. What's fun, is to try the different recipes and choosing the ones you like. Then with all the info, you can make your own great pizza sauce and pie.

[vcb]

I created this thread so we could share recipes and talk about Chicago Thin Crust sauce.
I have no problem with discussion in this thread, but I'd like to keep us on topic.

When people outright dismiss a major component of what we are trying to achieve,
it's not really helpful to those of us trying to reproduce a specific flavor or taste.

If you are one of the people who doesn't think a good sauce recipe is a vital component to your Chicago thin crust pizza,
Feel free to start your own thread about how each city berates the other city's pizza sauce because of "reasons". 

   For the record, I believe it's perfectly fine for us to declare Chicago pizza styles superior to other pizza styles inside the Chicago Style Forum.

This micro-rant was free. The next one will cost you.