Pizza makers really want you to never do this again:

You’ve often heard us (and countless chefs) sing the praises of the simplest pasta sauce and how incredibly delicious it is in all its simplicity: ‘regular’ tomato sauce. Made by sautéing an onion and garlic and letting them simmer to perfection (with some herbs, if desired) in good canned tomatoes. Twenty minutes over low heat, and you’ve got the best homemade marinara sauce. But have you ever noticed that this is only called pasta sauce and never ‘pizza sauce’?

Because if there’s one thing pizza pros do NOT want to see on pizzas (okay, besides pineapple), it’s the same sauce that goes into pasta. And I would know, because I’m incredibly lucky to have several friends with pizza ovens in their gardens. #blessedbutforreal… And what every self-respecting pizza maker, professional or hobbyist, knows: that cooked sauce does not belong on a pizza. So what does?

The pure stuff

Raw sauce! That’s not really what you call it, of course, but it does make it clear that, with pizza sauce, the point is precisely that the sauce is not cooked beforehand. So no matter how good your marinara is, it remains a pasta dish. By the way, marinara is the original term for the basic red sauce, not, as many people in the Netherlands think, a dish with seafood. The reason people sometimes assume that pizza sauce needs to be precooked is probably that a pizza is ready in no time in such a blazing-hot oven, leaving little time for the sauce to cook. But trust us: a good pizzeria or home pizzaiola uses NO cooked sauce on pizzas. If they did, the enormous heat in the oven could make the sauce bitter or overly acidic.

Here’s how

So what should you use when baking your own little pizzas? The best canned tomatoes you can find, which will often lead you to San Marzano tomatoes. Canned tomatoes are generally dirt cheap, so if you can spare the extra euro and a half between the cheapest and most expensive can, we’d recommend doing so. Don’t forget that you need virtually nothing else for this sauce! Use polpa (plain, without added flavorings) if you can find it, or whole canned tomatoes that you crush with your hands or purée with an immersion blender or regular blender. In that case, you can add the seasonings right away; with polpa, simply stir them into the can: per 425 ml can, one tablespoon of olive oil, one grated garlic clove and one teaspoon of salt. Done! Top the pizza with whatever you like, and taste how wonderfully balanced this simple base is beneath your toppings of choice!

Also read:

• Ragù vs. Bolognese: what’s the difference?
• 10 best tips for pasta
• 10 ridiculously unnecessary facts about pizza