Pizza sauce is an important ingredient in pizza. It is primarily made of tomatoes and Italian herbs. It is very important to get the right ingredients and in the right proportion for making this sauce. This sauce can include other ingredients too that go well with tomatoes. For instance, you could use garlic, mushrooms, onions, and the likes. There are many variations to the pizza sauce recipe. Its variations include Alfredo sauce, barbecue sauce, peanut sauce, pesto sauce, and marinara sauce. This sauce can be flavored with different ingredients to suit the taste.
History
This dish has its origin in Italy. It is an Italian delight and for ages, it has been a favorite dish in this country. The origin of pizza sauce can be dated back to the 18th century. However, it was white in color with very different ingredients. It saw some quick changes and soon the white sauce was replaced by oil, cheese and tomatoes. The pizza, along with the sauce traveled to America in 1943 when Domenico Palmieri came to America from Italy. Since then, there has been no looking back and this dish is now popular all over the world. There are food chains with a wide variety of pizza sauce recipe and toppings. If we were to evaluate the origins of pizza, the origin can be dated back to 6th Century B.C where the soldiers of Darius accustomed lengthy marches. They baked a kind of bread on their shield and covered it with dates and cheese.
Ingredients and Preparation Method
The following ingredients are required for pizza sauce, tomatoes, garlic, basil, sugar, onion, olive oil, oregano, chili powder, and pepper. Additional optional ingredients would include thyme, sage, savory, bay leaf, marjoram, rosemary and mint. Typically, this sauce is made in two ways, cooked and uncooked. The cooked version of this sauce tends to be overcooked when the pizza is baked. However, the uncooked version tastes just perfect when baked with the pizza base and other toppings. The cooked sauce can be stored for up to a month and can be quite handy. It can stay longer when refrigerated or freezed. Here is the pizza sauce recipe.
Cooked recipe: Saute onion and garlic in olive oil and add other ingredients like tomatoes and herbs. Allow it to simmer for around 15 minutes. The sauce will thicken and the flavors will blend well in it. Let it cool before using it for baking the pizza. Extremely hot sauce will cook the top layer of the pizza quickly while the bottom may remain uncooked.
Uncooked recipe: The uncooked version of pizza sauce is quite simple. All the ingredients are mixed and fresh onions and garlic can be replaced with powdered onion and garlic. Tomatoes are crushed to make a puree and mix all the ingredients thoroughly.
For making this sauce spicy, you could add paprika, red pepper flakes, and cayenne.
Serving Style of Pizza Sauce Recipe
This sauce is added to the pizza bread/base before baking. It is topped with toppings like mushrooms, cottage cheese, jalapenos etc. The toppings can also include fruits. Whether it is the cooked version of this sauce or the uncooked version, it is spread over the base and baked in oven. This dish cannot be eaten on its own.
Health and Nutritional Value
This sauce is quite healthy since its major ingredient is tomatoes and herbs. The fresh herbs too have health properties. Tomatoes are a good source of Vitamin C and they contain Vitamin A. They are known to lower the risk of stomach cancer. This dish has very few calories per serving. In fact, it has just around 15 – 20 calories. However, when the pizza sauce is eaten with pizza, which is quite the way it should be eaten, then the calorie count can go high. The toppings, base and cheese add wholesome calories to this dish.
Trivia
Pizza has been a basic diet in Italy since the Stone Age. The traditional pizza recipes were not so lavish and the bread was baked on a hot stone. It was then seasoned with a variety of toppings.
Do not cook pizza sauce in an aluminum pan, since the acidic content of tomatoes can interfere and react with aluminum and change the taste of this sauce.