You can have pizza craving anytime, anywhere. However, you might not always have pizza sauce available for making pizza. In that case, what should you do? Often we don’t have pizza sauce ready at hand for a pizza night.
You can be busy and forget to make a batch of pizza sauce, or you run out of time to run to the grocery store to buy pizza sauce. In such a similar situation, all you can do is look for and use alternatives.
The best alternative that comes to mind as pizza sauce is undoubtedly pasta sauce. Even though they both have similar ingredients, they taste a bit different and have different consistencies.
So, without having to wait any longer, let’s look at if or if not you can use pasta sauce for pizza or not.
The main difference between both the sauces is tomatoes. In pizza sauce, the tomatoes are uncooked.
While in pasta sauce, the tomatoes are cooked, and the sauce is ready for use. Both sauces are seasoned with spices like pepper, salt, oregano, and other daily-use spices.
They might look similar from the outside, but their ingredients, preparation, and consistency are different, and they bring out different flavors when added to other things. Let’s take a keen look at what makes both sauces different.
The Difference Between Pizza Sauce And Pasta Sauce
Let’s start by exploring some of the key differences between pasta sauce and pizza sauce, we will talk about three main sections.
#1: Pizza Sauce vs Pasta Sauce: The Ingredients
Pizza sauce is more simple compared to pasta sauce. The only thing that a canned or jarred pizza sauce contains is tomato paste (uncooked) and tomato puree added with balsamic vinegar, garlic, oregano, salt, olive oil, and chilies.
The pizza sauce has a mild taste that allows you to add salt and other spices according to your liking.
On the other hand, the pasta sauce in a jar or can has way more ingredients, like it contains: salt, pepper, garlic, tomatoes (cooked), onion powder, and even red chilies.
And just like in the pizza sauce, you can add more ingredients to make the perfect pasta sauce at home. Or add more spices to make your pasta finger-licking good.
#2: Pizza Sauce vs Pasta Sauce: The Preparation
When we talk about pizza sauce, the one we buy from the store has uncooked tomatoes and raw ingredients.
This mainly happens because when you use the pizza sauce, you put it on your pizza, which cooks with other ingredients like dough and toppings.
And when you take out your pizza from the oven, all the ingredients will be cooked, and so will the pizza sauce.
However, since there is no such need to cook pasta sauce, the companies you buy it from already cook it for you.
So that you can boil your pasta and just add your sauce to it to enjoy the deliciousness. You can bathe your pasta strings in pasta sauce without the hassle of cooking.
However, cooked pasta sauce doesn’t mean you can’t cook it; if you want to cook it in it, you can do so without worrying about ruining your sauce’s taste.
#3: Pizza Sauce vs Pasta Sauce: The Consistency
Pizza sauce is always thicker than pasta sauce because each’s consistency serves a different purpose.
If the pizza sauce is watery and doesn’t have a thick consistency, then your pizza will become wet and soggy when you bake it. And since everyone adores crunchy and crispy bubbling cheese pizza, your pizza will be a huge flop.
Similarly, when it comes to pasta sauce, you need a thick consistency and a waterier sauce compared to pizza sauce because you have to mix spaghetti in it properly. It won’t incorporate well into your noodles if it is wide and can make your pasta into a lump.
Lumpy and sticky pasta is the worst, and that is why the sauce’s consistency is watery. Apart from this, you might also find chunks of tomatoes in pasta sauce, and you will notice that pizza sauce is smooth; again, it’s all about consistency.
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- How long can pizza sit out?
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- How to knead pizza dough?
Can you use pasta sauce for pizza?
You can even use Mariana sauce in your pizza if an emergency arises. So, compared to that, pasta sauce is very much similar to pizza sauce; you can easily use it in pizzas; it’s even becoming a popular trend amongst pizza lovers.
Not only does pasta sauce make the pizza taste divine, but it also adds variety to your pizza, brings out a fantastic flavor, and adds a different kind of flavor than traditional pizza.
So many people enjoy using pasta sauce on their pizzas because it is richer and has more flavor, making it the perfect alternative to pizza sauce.
So, if you want your pizza to have a unique texture and feel when you eat it, you should try using pasta sauce (even if you have pizza sauce because there is nothing wrong with trying new things).
Why Is Pizza Sauce Best?
Pizza sauce is only better than any other sauce because of its taste. And the taste is what makes all the pizza places religiously stick to using pizza sauces compared to different sauces.
No pizza place uses pasta sauce instead of pizza sauce because they think that it will ‘taste better’ on the pizza.
Since the pizza sauce is raw, it contains partially cooked tomatoes with essential ingredients so that when the pizza is baked, it makes the sauce thick and full of flavor (gives you a freshly made sauce taste).
When using pizza sauce, you will notice that your pizza has a stronger pizza flavor, and if you don’t enjoy that, then you can use pasta sauce because the strong flavor of tomatoes is somewhat mild in that sauce.
Pizza sauce is made specifically for pizzas, which makes it so unique.
What can I use if I don’t have pizza sauce? The Alternatives
You can use many alternatives in place of pizza sauce; the most popular one is pasta sauce. Pasta sauce is my first choice because it tastes similar to pizza sauce.
However, there are some more options that you can try when you have to make pizza but don’t have pizza sauce and you can’t visit the grocery store and buy some.
Some of the alternatives are:
- Pesto sauce
- Ricotta cheese or sauce
- Ranch dressing
- Barbecue sauce
- Tapenades
- Sweet chili sauce
- Olive oil and garlic mixture
- Buffalo wings sauce
- Tomato or chili ketchup
- Balsamic glaze
- Alfredo sauce
- Chimichurri sauce
- Or any sauce that you want to try.
You can always use different types of sauces for your pizza according to the kind of pizza you are making and are open to making adjustments in the taste of the pizza.
Of course, the pizza won’t taste anything like traditional pizza, but who knows? You might end up with something more delicious.
Final Verdict:
Using pasta sauce as pizza sauce can work magic for your pizza. While everyone knows that pizza sauce is specific for pizzas which thicker consistency, pasta sauce can also work great.
However, you must take care of its water content so that it doesn’t make your pizza all mushy. You can also easily use pizza sauce for pasta by cooking it and making it according to your flavor.
Ultimately, the choice is yours to make use of whichever sauce you want for your pizza; all that matters is that the pizza turns out to be super delicious and memorable. Good luck with making pizza with different sauces.
