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 medium thin-crust pepperoni pizzas or one thick and fluffy focaccia pizza. No cooking required!

I make homemade pizzas from scratch for dinner all the time. They're one of my favorite easy dinners. I like to make my thin-crust pizza dough 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 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!

Why Make a No-Cook Pizza Sauce

There are dozens if not hundreds of varieties of pizza sauce out there but nothing, imo, is more iconic than a simple and straightforward classic no-cook red sauce. While I can't claim this 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 that nice 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.

Why Use Canned Tomato Sauce

While 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.

Whole canned tomatoes still need to be pureed and only come in much larger quantities. I'm not about to get out an immersion blender or food processor out if I don't need to. I also don't need a huge quantity of pizza sauce.

One 6 ounce can of tomato sauce makes just about enough pizza sauce for 3 medium pizzas, so you won't end up with a lot left over. It also freezes nicely, so if you have extra it won't go to waste.

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!

Ingredient Notes

Here are the ingredients that you'll need to make this simple no-cook red pizza sauce using canned tomato sauce! See recipe card (at the end of the post) for quantities.

Tomato Sauce - This recipe uses one 6 oz can of unsalted tomato sauce. I'm not usually 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!

Garlic - One medium-to-large garlic clove or two small garlic cloves. If you use jarred garlic, you'll get the best results blending this up in a mini food processor!

Dried oregano & basil - These 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.

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 super important for maximizing that strong garlic flavor. According to America's Test Kitchen, grating the garlic into a paste on a zester "breaks down as many cells as possible, creating sharply-flavored, pungent garlic."

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 ensure every pizza has the same amount of sauce. The deep curve at the bottom of the ladle 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. Sweep it gently across the surface of the dough taking care not to apply too much pressure — you don't want the dough to stick to the peel!

You Need Less Sauce Than You Think

When you're making a thin-crust pizza, three, maybe four tablespoons (about 2 ounces) of sauce is plenty. You don't need to be precise, just aim for a thin layer of sauce with some spots where you can still see the dough peeking through.

The pizza will bubble up and shift in the oven as it cooks and the cheese melts, so don't worry if it looks streaky. It will all even out in the oven.

Spread the sauce fairly close to the edges of the crust — leave only about half an inch of bare crust as a border.

If you've stretched the crust properly, the outer edge of the crust will bubble up in the oven as the pizza shrinks slightly. The sauce helps weigh it down so you don't end up with a huge outer crust and a small surface area of cheese and sauce.

Substitutions & Variations

This is a great base pizza sauce recipe that you can absolutely tweak and customize to make it your own. Here's some suggestions to get you started:

• Spicy: Add ⅛ teaspoon red pepper flakes.
• Sweet: Add ¼ teaspoon sugar.
• Garlic Powder: Use ⅛-1/4 teaspoon garlic powder instead of a whole clove of garlic. The flavor won't be quite as fresh, but it works in a pinch!
• Italian Seasoning: Replace the dried oregano and dried basil with the same amount of dried Italian seasoning blend. (If the seasoning blend has salt in it, reduce the amount of salt in the recipe.)

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