New York Style Pizza Sauce

I have an obsession, a pizza obsession. I have a super duper long post in the wings about pizza dough that I need to shrink down but I have a lot of feelings about pizza. That, though, is another post. My pizza obsession needs a sauce. I used to use Prego spaghetti sauce as pizza sauce. It’s something I have done for years since I was a teenager, the best Prego sauce was Roasted Garlic Parmesan, mmmm. I figured after a while, if I take pride in my pizza making, I would need to find a good pizza sauce to accompany my awesome pizza dough. Sidetrack…I love Cooks Illustrated, they always have awesome recipes and some of the best have come from one of their former chefs J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. One of his best recipes was how to make the best shake shack hamburger clone. Long story short, he left Cook’s Illustrated to become the Managing Culinary Director for Serious Eats, which is where I found this recipe. It is now my go to sauce recipe. Its got great tomato flavor and hints of garlic, oregano and fresh basil. It is a really great New York style pizza sauce.

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New York Style Pizza Sauce

Adapted from Serious Eat and J. Kenji López-Alt, who is a food science god.

Ingredients

• 1 28 oz. Can whole peeled tomatoes
• 1 T. Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 T. Unsalted butter
• 2 medium cloves garlic, grated on microplane grater (about 2 teaspoons)
• 1 t. dried oregano
• pinch red pepper flakes
• Kosher salt
• 2 six-inch sprigs fresh basil with leaves attached
• 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and split in half
• 1 t. sugar

Directions

1. Process tomatoes and their juice through food mill, pulse in food processor until pureed, or puree with hand blender. Puree should not be completely smooth, but should have no chunks larger than 1/16 of an inch. Set tomatoes aside.
2. Combine butter and oil in medium saucepan and heat over medium-low heat until butter is melted. Add garlic, oregano, pepper flakes, and large pinch salt and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, basil sprigs, onion halves, and sugar. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to lowest setting (bubbles should barely be breaking the surface), and cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by 1/2, about 1 hour. Season to taste with salt.
3. Now this is what I do after its finished cooking.. Remove stems of basil, I pull the leaves off the stems and add them back to the sauce, then I blend the sauce in a blender with 1 half of the onion that was cooked in the sauce.
4. Allow to cool and store in covered container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

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