I hadn’t made pizza in a while and decided to try a new sauce last week. I started with this one, dubbed the Ultimate Pizza Sauce. It seemed like it would be way too thick as written but I was especially intrigued by the fennel seed. Unfortunately, after I started making the sauce I realized I had no fennel seed so I need to make it again. I bought the fennel seed my last trip to the grocery store but thought I’d post this as I made it, since it was quite good even without the fennel. I used way more sauce than the original recipe called for, but cooked it down.
Pizza Sauce with Fennel Seeds
Ingredients
- 2 Tbs oil
- 1 Tbs butter
- 1/2 an onion, chopped very finely
- 1/4 cup celery, chopped very finely
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 30 oz canned tomato sauce
- 12 oz tomato paste
- 2-3 Tbs grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 Tbs chopped fresh basil
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp fennel seed
Instructions
- Heat the oil and butter in a saucepan large enough to hold all the tomato sauce without spattering too much. Add the onion, celery, and garlic and saute 5-10 minutes over low until very soft. Add the tomato sauce and tomato paste and stir until smooth.
- Add all the rest of the ingredients and stir while bringing to a simmer. Turn it down to a very low simmer or it will spatter all over. Cover partially and cook at least half an hour, longer if you’d like. (I think I ended up at about 45 minutes to an hour.)
- Take the bay leaf out and spread the sauce over your favorite pizza dough. I like to prebake my pizza just a few minutes before spreading sauce.
Leave a Reply