Easy Pizza Sauce

Yesterday morning I mixed up a batch of 5 Minute a Day dough for my fridge before I left for work - planning to make Homemade Pizza for supper.  When we got home we ran out to my husband's mom's house for a little visit so we got home a little later than we usually do.  We could have grabbed a bite to eat somewhere but just knowing that delicious dough was in the refrigerator spurred me on to stay with the plan and make homemade pizza.  Once you try this dough for crust and make a pizza with it, pizzaria restaurants just don't seem as wonderful as they once have... because this pizza is just THE PIZZA! 

Sometimes I use store bought, jarred pizza sauce but unless I have several people to feed I tend to open the jar, make a pizza for me and Doug, and leave the rest languishing in the fridge to mold.  I hate being so wasteful!  I discovered not too long ago when I was making do instead of running to the store, that a cheapy little can of tomato sauce,  a little garlic powder and some dried oregano is all you really need for pizza sauce.  My husband really prefers this sauce on his pizza.  He likes tangy sauce instead of sweet sauce so this works great!  The extra plus, it's CHEAP!  I usually get those little 8 oz cans of tomato sauce at Aldi for around 30 cents.  One can will make two medium pizzas or one large and one small, with a little sauce leftover.  So... that's a no brainer!

Here's how I make homemade pizza with Easy Pizza Sauce AT HOME MY WAY:

Pizza with Easy ("cheap") Pizza Sauce

 

Ingredients:

• Crust for pizza (I use a hunk of dough from my 5 Minute a Day dough)
• 1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce (generic is completely fine here)
• Garlic Powder, dried Oregano
• Cheese (I grate mozerella to avoid the "stuff" they put in bags of grated cheese to keep it from clumping)
• Toppings (pepperoni, sandwich ham (which is just like canadian bacon, only cheaper), mushrooms, peppers, ...)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°. 

Spray your cookie sheet/pizza pan with cooking spray well.

Place a little flour on the disc of dough that you are using and start flattening it out (with your hand) on your cookie sheet.  Using a small rolling pin or thick glass (careful not to push too hard so that the glass would break), roll out the dough in the cookie sheet/pizza pan.  If it springs back, give it a few minutes to loosen up.  Keep rolling/pressing it out in the pan.

Spread some tomato sauce from the 8-ounce can on the crust. 

Sprinkle the sauce well with garlic powder (like you would "pepper" something), sprinkle well with oregano (a good sprinkling, not just a dabble).  I also sprinkle my sauce with canned parmesan cheese when we have some.  Sometimes I don't have any and I skip that.

Place grated cheese on your pizza.  Now add the toppings like pepperoni, ham, mushrooms.

Place the pizza in a PREHEATED oven set at 400° until the cheese melts and starts to brown and the crust edges start browning, probably 20 minutes or so, but use your judgment.  You want the pizza cheese starting to brown and the crust edges starting to brown although my cheese browns lots quicker than my crust edges and the bottom is still plenty crispy.

Loosen the baked pizza from the cookie sheet and place on a cutting board and slice it up!  We like squares when we use a rectangle cookie sheet for baking the pizza.

Now, look in your wallet because you just saved yourself about $10-$15 and the pizza isn't greasy or soggy and you feel good about eating it.  No greasy pizza, no soggy pizza, no weird toppings that you didn't ask for.  It's a complete win!

I know that pizza sauce only costs about $1.00 but if you use canned TOMATO sauce instead of pizza sauce, then you are using something that you might keep in your pantry for other cooking.  Not having to buy a special ingredient specifically for making pizza takes some of the effort and expense out of meal prep.