A recipe that only requires one real ingredient? You read that right! This raw (no cook) Italian tomato sauce is perfect on top of Neapolitan-style pizza.
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After attending culinary school in Italy, I learned how to make classic Neapolitan pizza from the city of Naples, in the Italian region of Compana.
This style of pizza is made with a light and fluffy pizza crust, then topped with no-cook pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella, and basil.
Compared to your average pasta sauce or tomato pizza sauce, this sauce is much simpler. The tomatoes are just blended and seasoned. There is no need to cook this sauce because it cooks with the pizza.
I also have a spicy Neapolitan pizza sauce if you're looking for a twist on this recipe.
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What You'll Learn In This Recipe
- The simplest way to make tomato sauce for pizza.
- How to fix your tomato sauce if it’s too watery.
- Helpful tips and tricks from culinary school.
Want to make the best Italian pizza? Grab a list of 85+ Italian pizza topping ideas.
Ingredients You Need
Check out the key ingredients that go into making the tastiest raw Italian tomato pizza.
Whole canned peeled tomatoes: For this recipe, I use canned tomatoes since they are available all year round. Be sure to look for whole, peeled tomatoes. I highly recommend choosing a brand or variety of tomatoes that have lots of flavor, such as San Marzano tomatoes.
Kosher salt: For this recipe, I recommend using kosher salt. This not only helps to flavor the pizza sauce but also adds a great base flavor to the overall pizza.
Black pepper: Be sure to use finely ground black pepper to add a great depth of flavor to the sauce.
How To Make This Recipe
This Italian no-cook pizza sauce recipe is super easy to make. In just a couple minutes you'll have delicious sauce ready to go on top of your Neapolitan-style pizza.
1. To begin, you are going to need an electric blender. An immersion blender or a food processor would work for this as well.
Start by filling the blender with tomatoes, kosher salt, and black pepper. Make sure to use the liquid from the canned tomatoes as well.
2. Attach the lid and pulse four to five times. You only want to break up the large chunks of tomato. Don’t blend so much that it turns into tomato juice.
As soon as you’re done blending, you can use it right away to spread on top of your Italian Neapolitan pizza. If you aren’t planning on using it right away, store the Italian tomato sauce in an airtight container. This will stay good in the fridge for up to a week.
Expert Tips
- Storage: Store leftover pizza sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.
- If the Italian Neapolitan pizza sauce has too much liquid for your liking, you can strain some of the excess juice with a fine mesh strainer.
- Taste your sauce before deciding if it’s good to go. If you taste it and feel it needs a little more salt or a little more pepper, feel free to add some additional seasonings.
- Tomato sauce can be hard to clean out of plastic containers. If possible, store your tomato sauce in a glass container for easy cleanup.
Recipe FAQs
Absolutely. This recipe is so simple that you can halve or even quarter it.
While there is no clear-cut best brand, some of my favorites are Red Gold or Cento.
An easy fix for watery tomato sauce is to use a mesh strainer to filter out some of the tomato water. Do this a little bit at a time until the tomato sauce is the consistency you like.
Yes. Fine sea salt will also work for this recipe.
If you want to make this recipe with ripe, summer tomatoes, which I highly recommend, then you'll need to flash-cook (blanch) the tomatoes. Here's what to do:
1. Boil a large pot of water over high heat.
2. Score the bottom of each tomato with a small "X". I like to use a pairing knife for this.
3. Add a small amount of tomatoes to the boiling water and cook for 30 - 90 seconds until you start to see the skins split open.
4. Finally, remove them from the boiling water and transfer to an ice bath to stop the cooking.
5. Then, you can peel off the skin and follow the instructions in the recipe card below.
More Pizza Recipes
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the recipe card below. Don't forget to follow along on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest for more recipes.
Italian Neapolitan Pizza Sauce
Equipment
- blender, food processor, or immersion blender
Ingredients
- 28 ounces whole canned peeled tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon Morton kosher salt
- ⅛ teaspoon finely ground black pepper
Instructions
- Add tomatoes along with the juice, salt, and pepper to the container of an electric blender. Pulse 4 - 5 times, just until the large chunks of tomato have broken down. Alternatively, use a food processor or immersion blender.
- Use immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.
Terry
I've recently starting making Italian pizza from scratch and I had no idea that authentic Neapolitan pizza sauce was this simple! This is a win for me especially after all the time it takes to make homemade dough.