The Best New York-Style Pizza Sauce Recipe – State of Dinner (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to New York-style pizza? ›

If there's one secret to NYC pizza that I've learned over time, it's about the fermentation of the dough, or the “prove” as it's know. This is where the yeast works it's magic, producing an incredible taste and texture in the dough. Proper fermentation is arguably the secret to NYC pizza, and any pizza for that matter!

Minerals present in New York City's tap water supply are also credited with giving the dough in metro area pies its characteristic texture and flavor. Some out-of-state pizza bakers even transport the water cross-country for the sake of authenticity.

The sauce consists only of uncooked canned tomatoes. Most New York pizzerias use 7/11 by Stanislaus or one of their other brand lines. The cheese will be block mozzarella, shredded.

SUMMARY – San Marzano are the tomatoes by excellence for classic red sauce pizza. Some other varieties include the Pomodorino del Piennolo- yellow or red. If San Marzano is impossible to find where you live, oblong peeled tomatoes are the best next choice.

Chef Felice recommends a good bread flour for New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Sicilian pizzas, such as Gold Medal Unbleached Unbromated flour or Caputo Americana. For Pizza Napoletana and Neo Neapolitan, he recommends 00 flour made from finely ground Italian durum wheat.

A pizza isn't New York style without three things: tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and crust made from high-gluten flour. While there is room for creativity, each of these three ingredients is a necessary part of a true New York pizza. The spices of choice are dried basil, oregano, and red chili pepper.

Oregano. Here we have a well-known and loved staple in many kitchens. It's got a distinct savory flavor that is able to bring a fresh taste to your pizza. Oregano plays a big role in Italian cooking, which is why it's one of our favorite Italian herbs for pizza.

Poll after poll, pepperoni always tops the list of America's favorite pizza toppings.

The Oil. While not all pizza dough recipes call for oil, Baldwin is a fan. "Don't be afraid to go heavy with olive oil at every step of making your pizza," she says. "It will help crisp up your crust and make it taste great."

What's the Best Cheese for New York-Style Pizza? Next, it's the cheese. Unlike a Neapolitan, which uses fresh mozzarella, New York-style pizza uses grated, dry mozzarella—the kind you can get sliced on a meatball sub or wrapped in cryovac blocks near the milk.

What is best cheese for pizza? ›

The undisputed king of meltiness for cheese toppings is mozzarella. Classic mozzarella has the ideal balance of moisture, elasticity, and fat content for meltability.

Plum tomatoes are ideal for making pizza sauce. Actually, the best tomatoes for pizza sauce are ones below Mt. Vesuvius' soil outside Naples in San Marzano, Italy. But, since everyone doesn't live around Vesuvius, canned San Marzano tomatoes are available in the supermarket.

A pizza sauce has a greater thickness to it thanks to the use of undiluted tomato paste. Pizza sauce tends to be somewhat simpler in terms of ingredients. While both feature tomatoes in one form or another, a pizza sauce's add-ins are often limited to things like garlic, oregano, basil, and olive oil.

So, where else would the best tomatoes for pizza come from if not Italy? San Marzano tomatoes are named after the southern Italian town where they “were born”—San Marzano sul Sarno. Pizza fans, top chefs, and Italian cooks praise these tomatoes as the gold standard for taste.

Because of the fineness of the grains, 00 flour is the ideal flour for pizza. 00 flour is a finely ground Italian milled flour ideal for pizza due to its delicate and fluffy crust.

The crust: New York-style pizzas typically have thin, crispy crusts—similar to Neopolitan pizzas, except a bit sturdier. On the other hand, Chicago-style pizzas have thicker crusts that extend from the bottom up the entire height of the pizza. This bowl shape is what earned this style of pizza its deep-dish monicker.

New York-style pizza dough is an offshoot of Neapolitan-style dough—still a thin crust pie, but slightly thicker than its Italian cousin. The crust is sturdy, but not cracker-like, and instead features a tender chew thanks to the addition of oil in the dough.

According to the Pizza Hut website, the Big New Yorker is a 16-inch pizza that's cut into six oversized, foldable slices with a crispy thin crust, sweet marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese and Parmesan oregano seasoning. For an additional fee you can add toppings like pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms or onions.

Unlike a Neapolitan, which uses fresh mozzarella, New York-style pizza uses grated, dry mozzarella—the kind you can get sliced on a meatball sub or wrapped in cryovac blocks near the milk.