5-Minute No-Cook Red Pizza Sauce

Learn how to turn a can of tomato sauce into a flavorful classic no-cook pizza sauce in less than 5 minutes. This is my go-to pizza sauce because it's so easy and quick to make.

This simple red sauce for pizza uses canned tomato sauce, fresh garlic, salt, and dried herbs to make enough sauce for 3-4 of my medium thin-crust pepperoni pizzas or one of my thick and fluffy focaccia pizzas. No cooking required!

I make homemade pizzas from scratch for dinner all the time. I make my thin-crust pizza dough (which makes enough dough for four pizzas) in advance and freeze it, which means all I have to do is defrost it, stretch it, and add toppings to get dinner on the table fast.

And with a simple red pizza sauce that's this quick to make, a whole pizza can come together in about 8-10 minutes.

As I've tweaked and adjusted my go-to classic red pizza sauce recipe over the years, my goal has always been to keep it as low-effort as possible without sacrificing flavor. We're going for speed and ease here, people!

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of varieties of pizza sauce out there but, to me, nothing is more iconic than the classic no-cook red sauce. While I can't claim that my version is an "authentic" New York-style pizza sauce with any authority, it is, like most New York pizza sauces, a no-cook red sauce.

Because this pizza sauce isn't cooked, it has plenty of bright, fresh, and acidic tomato flavor with just the right amount of bite from the garlic.

"Cooking your sauce will make your pizza taste like it was topped with pasta sauce rather pizza sauce. Sauce variants like vodka sauce ought to be cooked, but when it comes to plain pizza sauce, don’t cook it when it comes to New York-style pizza."

— Joe Rosenthal, How to Pizza

Neapolitan Pizza Sauce vs. No-Cook Pizza Sauce

Neapolitan pizza sauce originates in Naples, Italy, where there is are very strict guidelines certifying what qualifies as a "true" Neapolitan pizza.

Traditionally, Neapolitan pizzas are made with a simple no-cook pizza sauce, but the ingredients needed are very specific. That means using ingredients sourced from specific regions and prepared in very specific ways.

For example, tomatoes must come from the Campania region and be crushed by hand, in order to even begin claiming any sort of Neapolitan authenticity. You can read more about the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN) regulations on their website.

So while this is a no-cook pizza sauce, and it is very similar in style to a Neapolitan pizza sauce, it is not a true Neapolitan pizza sauce.

I Use Canned Tomato Sauce

Though many no-cook pizza sauce recipes call for whole canned tomatoes, I prefer using canned tomato sauce since it has already been reduced slightly and pureed just the right amount. It's ready-made for pizza sauce, comes in a smaller can, and is much less messy, too.

Ingredient Notes

Here are the ingredients that you'll need to make this simple no-cook red pizza sauce using canned tomato sauce!

My pizza sauce recipe uses one 6 oz can of unsalted tomato sauce. I'm not picky about the brand; I look for whatever is cheapest. Make sure you're getting tomato sauce, not tomato paste or puree. There shouldn't be any other ingredients in it but tomato and maybe citric acid or water. If you use a tomato sauce with salt in it, you may want to reduce the amount of salt you add to it!

Dried oregano & basil add that classic pizza flavor to the sauce. Sometimes I use Burlap & Barrel's Pizza Party seasoning blend or King Arthur Baking's Pizza Seasoning Blend as a shortcut. They both include garlic powder, so I reduce the amount of garlic I add to the sauce if I do.

The dried herbs are technically optional, but I like adding them because I don't always have fresh oregano or thinly sliced fresh basil for topping my pizza. If you're planning on topping your pizza with fresh herbs after it bakes, you may decide you don't need the dried herbs in your pizza sauce. It's really up to you!

Whisk It, Whisk It Real Good

This is another one of those so-simple-it-hardly-needs-a-recipe recipes, so I'll keep it brief. I've also included some other methods further down the post.

Turning the garlic into a paste is important for maximizing that strong garlic flavor. Slicing or rough chopping garlic (or using jarred garlic) doesn't quite break the garlic down the same way zesting does.

Since garlic is the only ingredient in this recipe that needs to be broken down this finely, I find it's more practical to grab a zester rather than do it by hand with a knife. If you don't have a Microplane zester, you can paste garlic with a knife instead.

Spread Pizza Sauce With the Back of a Spoon

Pizzerias often use ladles in specific measurements to sauce their pizzas to ensure they all have the same amount of sauce. The curve at the bottom of the ladle also makes it easy to spread the sauce evenly without any sharp edges tearing or catching on the dough.

For home pizza-making purposes, a regular old dinner spoon works just fine. Glide the spoon gently across the surface of the dough to spread the sauce evenly.

Substitutions & Variations

Don't feel beholden to the ingredient measurements here. This is a very simple base recipe and you can absolutely tinker with it to find your own perfect no-cook pizza sauce combination of garlic, herbs, and seasonings!

📖 Recipe