I want to make NYC style pizza sauce

August 12, 2023 7:56 AM

Anyone have a tried and true recipe that tastes like pizza from Joe's (in the village) or a similar place?

We make pizza at home and we have the crust down to a science and the cheese too but the perfect sauce still eludes! I don't know why it's so good. My husband found this one which is servicable but I cannot stand the tomato paste being in it and find that makes it taste off.

I've read and heard that pizza sauce should not be cooked, is that right? It cooks on the pie? Please teach me your ways if you know how to make a great sauce. I'm thinking the less ingredients the better? Like I keep finding recipes with onions and butter and things of that ilk, not on MY pizza you don't! And I should start with a San Marzano tomato if I can? I really like the taste of Rao's pizza sauce but feel it can be improved upon, and would prefer to make my own.

posted by the webmistress to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

You should read J. Kenji López-Alt's take on the topic for Serious Eats: New York-Style Pizza Sauce Recipe.
posted by Perplexity at 8:38 AM on August 12, 2023 [3 favorites]

The way I make it (once a week in the cooler months) is to take a can of tomatoes and drain them by pouring the whole can into a strainer over a bowl until there’s no liquid left iqn the drained tomatoes. Then I throw the drained tomatoes into a food processor with tablespoon or so of olive oil and purée them; I might press a couple of garlic cloves into the tomatoes before I purée, if I remember. You can also use an immersion blender for this step. Add salt and pepper to taste. That’s it. It cooks on the pizza.
posted by holborne at 8:46 AM on August 12, 2023 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: Perplexity, that's the recipe I was thinking of in my question where I mentioned butter and onion...haha. Is it any good? Have you tried it?

Holborne, I like your style. I cannot with the tomato paste, husband and I are arguing about it right this minute ;)
posted by the webmistress at 8:57 AM on August 12, 2023

NYC style pizza sauce isn't just canned tomatoes and paste, it has lots of garlic, onion, basil, oregano. Cook garlic and onion first in both butter and oil.
posted by little striped mule at 8:58 AM on August 12, 2023

Kanji is lying about how much sugar is in actual, on the street, NYC pizzerias’ sauce but the food snobs of the internet are not ready for that conversation.
posted by kapers at 10:25 AM on August 12, 2023 [6 favorites]

Maybe try cooking the tomato paste first to get rid of that canned metallic taste...
posted by chasles at 10:41 AM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There's a YouTube series about making NY style pizzas (part one), and it seems legit to me.
posted by mumimor at 11:22 AM on August 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

(The sauce comes really late in the series, but I feel it is worth it to see the whole series).
posted by mumimor at 12:42 PM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yeah, the secret is sugar, more than you'd think. Plus more salt than is strictly necessary, they play off each other. I'm sorry I don't have any recipes to share, I've never seen one with an authentic amount of sugar in it.
posted by Admiral Viceroy at 12:42 PM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

A glug of white wine can have a similar effect to sugar in masking the bitterness of (many) canned tomatoes.

My best pizza sauce to date: Mutti Passata + high quality olive oil + clove of garlic + 1T onion powder + 1T garlic powder + 1tsp dried thyme + glug of white wine. Dumped it all together and just heated it before putting on the pizza. Was way better than much more laborious attempts.
posted by miscbuff at 6:52 PM on August 12, 2023

Response by poster: mumimor, thanks so much for that link! I ended up watching all of his pizza videos. His crust recipe is a definite future attempt for me. He actually mentions Joe's several times and buys several pizzas there to do trial and error taste tests with. I ended up using the sauce recipe he uses and it's very very good! I am going to very slightly tweak it (no garlic at all, and a bit less oregano). I feel kind of vindicated in that none of his sauce recipes call for paste. I really detest it. Thanks again.
posted by the webmistress at 6:53 PM on August 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Bon Appetit "perfect pizza" sauce recipe is our go-to, but it's annoyingly dependent on using the exact right canned tomatoes. If you can source them, though, it's unreal how good it is; it's bright and sweet and tart and simple to a degree that seems impossible given how little goes in to it. It reminds me more of John's than Joe's but it feels very much in the same wheelhouse.
posted by saladin at 4:04 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

The tomato/butter/onion thing is Marcella Hazan's recipe (she was one of the first great Italian food writers to come to prominence in English).

There is no canonical definition of pizza sauce so you are going to come across so many approaches from no cook all the way up to elaborate ingredients. Ed Levine's Pizza: a slice of heaven comprehensively covers the world of pizza as it existed in 2010. There are so many styles of crust and sauce that you aren't going to get what you want from a generic recipe unless you know what Joe's in the Village was going for. Ed was the original publisher of Serious Eats so he knows his topic. If I could find my copy of the book I'd be able to confirm that he discusses Joe's.
posted by mmascolino at 7:16 AM on August 13, 2023

I tried the sauce in the YT series that @mumimor linked to and it's good. I couldn't find any of the brands he likes, and I refuse to give Walmart any of my money, so I just used a decent-quality Italian brand. If you are the sort of person who just wants recipes without all the research, skip to video 7 in the series where it's all covered. I also tried his pizza dough recipe, and the addition of a little sugar really does give a nice crispness. Will be using those again.
posted by TheDonF at 6:21 PM on August 20, 2023