Nourishing Homemade Pizza Sauce

All canned commercial pizza sauces, even organic varieties, contain bisphenol-A (BPA).  This is because there are no FDA-approved cans for acidic foods that do not contain BPA. BPA has gotten quite a bit of attention lately as it is suspected to have damaging effects on brain, behavior, and prostate for fetuses, infants, and children.  BPA is also a prime suspect in the rise of early puberty in girls, as BPA mimics estrogen in the body. Additionally, BPA has been linked to obesity.

I try to avoid BPA as much as possible by buying tomato products in glass jars, such as Bionaturae strained tomatoes and tomato paste.  And it is easy to make your own nourishing pizza sauce at home! This pizza sauce is delicious, and with the addition of homemade chicken stock it is nutritionally superior to store-bought pizza sauce.

Homemade, Nourishing Pizza Sauce 
Makes about 3 cups of sauce

• Two 7-oz jars of tomato paste
• 14 oz homemade chicken stock*
• 1&1/4 tsp celtic sea salt**
• 1 Tb dried basil OR 3 Tb minced fresh basil
• 1 Tb dried oregano OR 3Tb minced fresh oregano
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tb red wine vinegar***
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

1. Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan.  
2. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 10-20 minutes. If you have a splatter screen, use it because this can make quite a mess on the stovetop. 
3. When the sauce has reduced and thickened to the right consistency for pizza sauce, turn off heat and allow to cool. 

This recipe makes enough sauce for about 3-4 pizza meals for my family of four.  I store the extra sauce in the freezer (in the same jars the tomato paste came in), so that I don't have to make sauce each time we have pizza. My favorite grain-free crust to use these days is this coconut flour-based crust from The Healthy Home Economist. I top it with pizza sauce, kalamata olives, mild green chile, nitrate-free salami, sauteed mushrooms and onions, and plenty of cheese. Mmmm.

*I don't skim the fat from my homemade chicken stock.  If your stock doesn't include fat, you may want to add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to this recipe.   
**The tomato paste and chicken stock I use are both unsalted. If there is already salt in what you are using, you'll need to reduce or omit the salt.
***My homemade chicken stock tends to be a bit sweet and very strongly flavored.  The addition of red wine vinegar helps to cut the chicken stock flavor so that the pizza sauce doesn't end up tasting like chicken soup.  If your homemade stock is not so strongly flavored, you can probably omit the vinegar.


This post is part of Pennywise Platter at The Nourishing Gourmet, Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist, Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade and Real Food Wednesday with Kelly the Kitchen Kop!