Homemade Organic Pizza Sauce

Homemade pizza sauce is so easy to make when you use the bar-be-cue.  Yep, the bar-be-cue! It seems like a lot of recipes are expanding to the bar-be-cue these days and pizza sauce is no exception. This recipe is easy, quick, delicious, and best of all, extremely fresh, especially when you use those wonderfully ripe tomatoes from your own garden!

Here’s how to make the sauce:

Cut 10-12 tomatoes in half.  Place them face down directly (or on a layer of foil) on a hot bar-be-cue and top each with a piece of fresh basil. Cook them with the lid down until they are hot and soft (5-10 minutes)

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You can start the tomatoes on their skin side too.  Yes, my husband thinks he has asbestos hands!

Place them into a heat safe bowl and add dried oregano and salt to taste.  Crush large lumps with a spoon and stir until well mixed.  We like ours chunky, so we don’t pulverize the tomatoes completely.

You’re done!

See?!  Easy. Quick. Fresh. Healthy. Plus delicious and economical!

For the pizza itself we like to use Trader Joe’s ready to roll and bake dough which we roll very thin, but any will do. If you’re the baking type, try my friend Mary’s recipe.  She’s Italian… It’s phenomenal!!!!

When we roll the dough out it’s almost never a circle, so don’t worry if yours isn’t either. After brushing both sides of the rolled out dough with a little olive oil, it bakes on a pizza stone on the bar-be-cue (of course) until both sides are just crispy and just starting to brown.  Then it comes off for a thin layer of homemade pizza sauce and is topped with a little shredded cheese, a little goat cheese crumbles, fresh halved cherry tomatoes, grilled zucchini, mini colorful bell pepper slices, shaved parmesan, and more basil. Back it goes onto the stone until the toppings are hot and the cheese starts to melt.

Look at that sauce…mmmm.

Shaved parmesan.

A little shredded cheese-not much!

Multi-colored tomatoes and mini bell pepper slices. 

Add grilled zucchini and basil leaves…

Isn’t it pretty?!!

Goat cheese confetti.

Heat it on the bar-be-cue for about 5 minutes.

All done and ready to cut and serve…

…although sometimes it doesn’t make it to the table :0)

Having your toppings pre-chopped makes it quicker and easier.  We also make a ham and grilled pineapple (you guessed it- on the bar-be-cue) chunks pizza with a dash of bar-be-cue sauce added to the pizza sauce and topped with scallions from the yard.  Hawaiian style at home!

Serve it hot and you will be amazed at how delicious fresh pizza made from your own garden veggies and herbs can be.  It’s warm, crispy, a little sweet from the bell peppers, a little tangy from the goat cheese, a little savory from the shredded cheese and all around delicious!!

Homemade pizza and homemade pizza sauce are a great, healthy way to use your fresh home grown organic vegetables and herbs and sneak in an extra serving of veggies without sacrificing flavor. Yum!!

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