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I'm trying to make homemade pizza sauce but end up with sauce that ends up drying up in the oven. Here's what im using:
1 can crushed roma tomatoes
3/4 cup garlic
3/4 cup basil
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper
Heat until thick
However when I smear the sauce onto the dough and bake it, it never turns out right. Any thoughts? Any suggestions on my recipe would also be great.
The key to good tomato sauce is the rate at which you heat it. The instinct is to just get it boiling and thicken it up in twenty minutes but this results in horrible tomato paste.
Instead, simmer the sauce very slowly for say four hours and you will get a much better result. You can do a big batch and it will keep very well in the freezer.
The long slow heating will make the tomatoes fall apart, but if it's still too chunky then you can always blend the sauce.
I think ElendilTheTall has the right answer if you want a really great sauce; low and slow is (nearly) always the way to go.
If you don't have the time or patience for that, you can still get a pretty damn good pizza sauce in under 20 minutes. I begin by heating some minced garlic in about 3 tbsp oil, heating the pan, the oil and the garlic at the same time. As soon as the garlic starts to sizzle add the tomatoes and the basil and simmer for 10-20 minutes. Then, and this is the key point, blitz it in the blender. This gives you a homogeneous sauce that you can spread thickly and evenly.
I would use tomato puree instead of crushed tomatoes. It has a thicker, more sauce-like consistency.
