How to Make Pizza Sauce Out of Marinara (2024)

FAQs

How do I turn marinara sauce into pizza sauce? ›

In a small saucepan, heat the marinara sauce over medium heat. As it warms, add the minced garlic, dried oregano, dried basil, onion powder, and red pepper flakes, if desired. These additional ingredients will elevate the flavor profile of the marinara sauce, giving it that classic pizza sauce taste.

Using cornstarch or pasta water is a good way to thicken marinara sauce without altering the recipe too much, but it's not the only one. You can also add other ingredients. Just know that in some cases the result will taste and look different from typical marinara sauce.

When you make home-made tomato sauce with fresh or tinned tomatoes, it can sometimes turn out to be too acidic. Add a little milk to tomato sauce for a sweeter taste to offset the acidity of the tomatoes. This is a well-kept secret amongst Italian grandmothers.

Is Pizza Sauce the Same as Marinara? Pizza sauce and marinara sauce are similar but not the same. Pizza sauce is thicker in consistency than marinara sauce because the tomatoes are pureed instead of lightly blended. Pizza sauce is usually cooked on a pizza crust, whereas marinara sauce is served as a dip or topping.

Over blending may cause too much water to seep out of your tomatoes resulting in a watery pizza sauce. If you are using crushed tomatoes, simply dump into a container/bowl, add salt to taste and mix to combine. Easy, right?!

Tomatoes naturally contain lots of water, so cooking any tomato sauce for a long period of time will help eliminate some of the water content. The water will slowly but surely evaporate, leaving behind a thickened, full-bodied sauce with lots of flavor.

Add pasta water to the sauce

If you realize you haven't made enough sauce, Lidia Bastianich says you can stretch it by adding pasta water to the mix (via Today). She recommends pouring some leftover pasta water into the sauce mixture and cooking it on low until the liquid fully absorbs into the pasta.

Add butter

Yes, that's right. Toss in a few tablespoons of butter, and let it melt into the sauce. If you've never tried it before, it might seem strange, but a little butter makes tomato sauce rich and smooth, and also balances out too much acidity, which is common in jarred sauces.

How to add milk to tomato sauce without curdling? ›

Stabilize with a Starch

Starches like flour or cornstarch help stabilize the milk emulsion. This will prevent it from separating. A common technique is to thicken your sauce or soup with roux before adding the milk. This changes the makeup of the liquid and prevents curdling.

Using dairy is an effective way to thicken and bind, without much hassle. Below we explore various ways that dairy can be used in your Banting dishes, as well as a few nifty tricks to thicken dairy-based sauces.

Taste the sauce once it's warm and add some seasoning. Maybe it needs a touch of salt, red pepper flakes, or some fresh garlic to liven it up. You could add dried or fresh herbs too: oregano, basil, thyme, tarragon, parsley—they're all great!

Simmer sauce until thickened and oil on surface is a deep orange, about 15 minutes. (If using oregano, taste sauce after 10 minutes of simmering, adding more salt and oregano as needed.)

Besides most Italians do buy passata and canned tomatoes, made with tomatoes only or enriched with a few other ingredients, that are used in winter when fresh tomatoes are not available.

You can substitute pizza sauce with pasta sauce, pesto, white garlic sauce, Buffalo sauce, Hummus, and more. The right recipe can make any sauce usable as a pizza base. However, make sure you're well aware of the flavor profiles of your toppings with your base sauce.

A simple marinara is a staple make-ahead side for any pizza event. Although it could be used on New York or Chicago deep-dish pies (Neapolitan style calls for an uncooked sauce), this flavor-packed sauce is best suited to dipping leftover pizza crusts, garlic knots, baked dough balls, or mozzarella...

Green Sauces

Made from olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese, roasted pine nuts, basil, and a touch of lemon,- pesto, is a delicious alternative with lots of flavors! If you aren't keen on tomato sauce you might want to give it a try.

Use 1/4 cup of sauce for each 30cm / 12″ pizza. Spread it evenly across the pizza base (hopefully homemade!) using the back of a spoon, leaving a 1cm / 1/2″ border for the crust. Sprinkle with 130g / 4.5 oz mozzarella cheese then toppings of choice – here are our Favourite Pizza Topping recipes.