Pizza Sauce

There are a few things in life I wish I could make perfect: biscuits, yeast rolls, and tomato sauce. Granted, I've never actually tried to make biscuits or yeast rolls from scratch (honestly, I'm happy with Bisquick, and Norma's Cafe right behind me makes great yeast rolls if I ever get a hankering). I'm never quite satisfied with my tomato sauce. Pizza sauce is a little different, and I'm getting happier with the results of that when I make it, but it is still a work in progress. I have tried it the traditional way with tomato paste but that tends to look too gelatinous. That really freaks me out. I had found that just using canned tomatoes is too runny and makes the dough soggy. My solution was to add sun-dried tomatoes to soak up the extra liquid and give the sauce a deeper tomato flavor.

Pizza Sauce

4 cloves garlic
about 1/2 cup onion, chopped
a couple dashes of red chili flakes (to taste - depending on how spicy you want it)
2/3 cup (or a handful) sundried tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes, drained of most of the liquid
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried thyme or any other dried herbs
1 TBSP balsamic vinegar
2 TBSP olive oil, plus more for pan
salt and pepper to taste

In a pan, heat a little bit of olive oil. Add garlic, onion, and chili flakes. Saute until soft. Transfer to a food processor and add sundried tomatoes. Process until chopped. Add can tomatoes, herbs, vinegar, salt and pepper. Process until mixed. Slowly drizzle in olive oil. Process until fully mixed.

Sauce can easily be frozen and re-used.

Sometimes I cook everything together before I transfer it to the food processor, and sometimes I leave out the onion and don't pre-cook any of it. I'm still deciding how to best work it out, but the above recipe came out the best once when I tried it.