This homemade, easy Pizza Sauce is an authentic family recipe that's as quick as it is delicious! It's the best alternative to jarred sauce and uses simple ingredients to build a ton of great flavor.
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It's always amazing when your baby young toddler (staaaahhhhppppp!) makes that shift from being seemingly oblivious to the conversations and events occurring around them to actually getting into the events occurring around them.
I'm not sure oblivious is the best word. T hasn't actually been truly oblivious to things since she was in the sleepy newborn phase. On the contrary, nothing really gets by her.
But for so long, babies aren't able to communicate outside of crying when they want things and interaction tends to be minimal until the reach a certain point in their development.
But T has definitely reached that point. Lately, she's really been diving into being a part of and communicating in basic family events like meals.
During our breakfasts this weekend, T started saying "mo" in addition to signing for more when she wanted more food. When we would ask her if she wanted more of something she would give a single and very certain "yes" nod and sometimes say "ya." Also, when she was done and we'd ask the same question she'd give a single "no" shake of the head.
She'll also pick food up and take bites of it. I was hesitant to try this in the past because she would often try to shove the whole thing into her mouth and I wasn't about to create choking hazards. But I think she's really taking our cues and mimicking the way that we eat.
Incidentally, this also provides great leverage to keep A on track with using her manners. She loves teaching T to do things so we're really able to kill two bids with one stone here.
T also loves to dip her foods, like french fries into ketchup. Much like her sister, she loves ketchup to the point that we have to tell she can't use her finger as a vessel with which to transport the ketchup into her mouth.
Being the smart little cookie that she is, she started using the fries as that vessel and will often lick the ketchup off the fry and go back for more several times before actually taking a bite. It's totally cute and kind of gross. Suffice it to say, she's probably not the person you want to share ketchup with!
Did I mention my Grandma Rose also had a killer and super easy pizza sauce recipe? Around here, we have a sauce for everything!
I can think of many occasions that we'd head over to Grandma's house and upon walking in, we'd be immediately greeted by the glorious aroma of pizza, fresh from the oven.
Rosie's pizza was always made on a baking sheet
and ended up thick with a gloriously chewy crust. While I normally prefer a thin, crispy crust, I will forever miss Grandma's pizza. It was full of fantastic flavor and was always a real treat!
Now Grandma, generally kept her pizza sauce chunky and stuck with Romano cheese instead of the usual mozzarella. This actually worked out quite well for me because I often picked off the chopped onions and peppers. I loved the flavor of the sauce since chopped onions and peppers weren't my scene. Sometimes my mom would throw the sauce into the food processor
and puree it for my sister and I to enjoy on our pizza.
This sauce comes together in under an hour and makes enough for you to make a pizza and freeze some for your next pizza! Like all the best sauces it builds a ton of flavor from minimal ingredients and can easily be doubled and tripled for a crowd or a sizable freezer stash.
Other great sauce-based Rosie favorites include:
- Rosie’s Famous Zucchini Soup
- Marinara Sauce
- Authentic Meatballs
- Sunday Sauce
- Grandma’s Easy Chicken Cacciatore
Easy Pizza Sauce
Ingredients
- A couple Tbsps. olive oil
- 1 small onion chopped
- 1 small green pepper chopped
- 1 clove of garlic minced or pressed (this was my mom's addition and I like the flavor it adds)
- 1 28 oz. can of crushed tomato you can also sauce if you prefer
- Oregano to taste
- Basil to taste
Instructions
- Heat oil over medium heat in a medium size pot.
- Add the onions, peppers and garlic and saute for 5-10 minutes to soften. If they start to fry add a little water as you don't want to brown them, only to steam them.
- Add the crushed tomato, oregano and basil and simmer for around 45 minutes, stirring periodically.
- Puree the sauce or leave it chunky if you like that and enjoy!
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