Quick and Easy No Cook Pizza Sauce Recipe

A sauce that doesn't need to be cooked?? That's right! Pizza sauce does not require pre-cooking to be delicious since it will cook while the pizza bakes anyway! This Quick and Easy No Cook Pizza Sauce recipe is ready for pizza night in a pinch without the hassle! Enjoy incredibly tasty homemade pizza tonight using this easy homemade pizza sauce recipe! 

What’s in this No-Cook Pizza Sauce recipe?

We especially love this recipe because it includes very simple ingredients that are easy to find in most grocery stores, or you may have these already in your pantry! For this easy pizza sauce recipe you will need the following ingredients:

• Canned whole peeled tomatoes – preferably Italian San Marzano tomatoes
• Small onion
• Garlic cloves
• Dried oregano and basil
• Kosher salt
• Crushed red pepper flakes
• Extra virgin olive oil

Whole Peeled Tomatoes

We highly recommend using the best canned whole tomatoes you can find. And those would be Italian ones labeled “San Marzano.” While any whole peeled tomatoes will work, if you’ve ever compared the different types and brands, you’ll know there is a drastic difference in quality and flavor across the spectrum. Either way, get the best that you can find or order from an online source.

We like the following brands for canned tomatoes: Mutti or San Marzano.

Aromatics

The fresh onion and garlic add a bit of depth to the flavor without being overpowering in any way.

The garlic is a very important ingredient, at least for us. We find (based on where we live in Houston) that when we buy garlic from about July through February, we get consistent results that we prefer. However, once we start getting spring garlic it becomes increasingly bitter and aggressive. To minimize the assertive raw garlic flavor, we just halve and boil the garlic cloves for 30 seconds or so during this time of year to knock off some of the “bite.” But two garlic cloves for this recipe should generally work for you to give it enough flavor without the bitterness.

Dried Spices

We used many different dried spices when testing this recipe and concluded that less is more. Dried oregano and basil in equal parts won out because of the obvious Italian flavor without too much going on. But if you have a preference in that ratio or like using a blended “Italian Seasoning” or just about any modification, it will work.

The red pepper flakes bring a slight amount of heat to the recipe to make it a bit more interesting but once it’s all blended together, it really isn’t spicy, especially since the amount you use in this recipe is hardly noticeable.

Kosher Salt

For salt, we always recommend using Kosher Salt due to the flavor, consistency and quality. When salting the sauce, always check the salt content in your canned tomatoes first. Every brand of canned tomatoes will have different amounts of salt, so you may need more or less than we have included in the recipe. You want your finished sauce to be seasoned well so that it is nice and flavorful once it goes on your final pizza.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

The EVOO in this recipe helps to emulsify the ingredients and give the sauce some body. Make sure you use a high quality extra virgin olive oil for this recipe for best results.

How to make this no-cook pizza sauce?

To make this pizza sauce, we use a blender to achieve a nice thick and smooth sauce consistency without cooking. Easy peasy! If you don't have a blender or immersion blender, you can use a food processor, although the sauce may be a bit chunkier using this method.

After blending the ingredients together, you will want to remove some of the excess moisture in the sauce before using so that your pizza doesn’t end up getting soggy. To remove excess moisture, we use a fine mesh sieve or line a strainer with a piece of cheesecloth, then let the sauce drain for about 15-20 minutes. During this time, you can use a spoon to move the sauce around and allow the watery parts of the sauce to drain.   

How many pizzas can I make with this pizza sauce recipe?

The recipe makes approximately 2.5 cups of sauce. This loosely makes about ten 12-inch pizzas.

Can you freeze this No Cook Pizza Sauce?

If you have leftover sauce, simply store it in an airtight container that is freezer safe and freeze for up to 4 months. The sauce will also keep in the refrigerator for up to 5 days if you decide to have pizza more than once during the week.

Looking for Other Pizza Sauce Recipes?

We have made several great pizza sauces for a wide variety of pizzas, but this one is so versatile and easy to make that it is most often our go-to pizza sauce. Of course, it tastes amazing and can be tweaked for personal taste quite easily. Generally, homemade pizza sauce will always be better than any store-bought pizza sauce, so we always opt to make our own at home.

If you prefer to use fresh ingredients instead of canned, we highly recommend that you make our recipe for The Best Homemade Pizza Sauce from Scratch. This recipe uses fresh tomatoes and fresh basil and is absolutely delicious! However, it does take about 3 hours to cook down all the ingredients, so this is more of a weekend project than a weeknight recipe.

Looking for a homemade pizza dough recipe? Check out THIS post for our 1-Hour Pizza Dough Recipe! We use this dough for our favorite pizza recipes.

We also have some delicious white pizza sauces used in our recipes for Truffle Mushroom White Pizza and Stuffed Squash Blossom and Zucchini White Pizza. Finally, check out our Basil Pesto sauce that we use on our Goat Cheese Pesto and Asparagus Pizza.

Can you use this pizza sauce for pasta?

Although this sauce can technically be used as a spaghetti sauce or pasta sauce, we actually do not prefer using it for that purpose. For pasta, either a cooked sauce or using strictly fresh ingredients are better options. Generally, pizza sauce is thicker than sauce used for pasta, making it a bit more concentrated. Extra moisture is a bad thing for a pizza crust but a good thing for pasta! If you are looking for a great pasta sauce, check out our Marinara Sauce from Scratch instead.

Enjoy!

We hope that you enjoy this recipe for Quick and Easy No Cook Pizza Sauce! If you give it a try and like it, leave us a comment and 5-star rating below! Or click the heart to like this recipe and share it with your friends! And, of course, make sure to share and tag us on Instagram @cooking_with_wine!

Looking for more quick and easy Italian recipes? Check these out:

• Creamy Cacio e Pepe Pasta
• Summer Pasta (Pasta D’Estate)
• Fettuccine Alfredo with Mushrooms (No Cream)
• Spaghetti Carbonara with Asparagus