How to Can Homemade Pizza Sauce (+ Recipe)
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This Homemade Pizza Sauce Recipe is full of flavor and super easy to make! It will make your homemade pizzas taste so much better than store-bought. And as a bonus, I’m sharing my tried and true instructions for how to can pizza sauce.

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Canning Homemade Pizza Sauce

Making Homemade Pizza Sauce is easier than you think! I just finished canning 7 half-pint jars of my Homemade Pizza Sauce. I’ve stopped purchasing pizza sauce from the store. I sometimes find it difficult to use all the sauce before it spoils (or I just plain ol’ forget it is in there, lol.)
This Homemade Pizza Sauce recipe is always a hit. A single batch of the sauce makes about 1.5 cups, so for today, I decided to do a huge quadruple batch and can it for later use! Keep in mind, the longer you simmer, the more the thick and flavorful the pizza sauce will be. The downside is, with longer simmer times, the recipe will keep reducing and you will end up with less sauce.
Ingredients And Tips For Pizza Sauce
(Ingredients at a glance, find the full recipe with ingredient amounts in the printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.)
- Crushed tomatoes: Crushed tomatoes give the pizza sauce the best texture though you could also use passata or tomato sauce.
- Water:
- Salt: A touch of salt enhances the flavor.
- Sugar: Sugar helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes.
- Spices: Garlic powder, onion powder, dried basil, dried oregano
How To make pizza sauce from scratch
1 Mix ingredients together. Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan or skillet, mix and saute on medium until sauce begins to bubble.
2 Simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3Transfer. Once the sauce has thickened and cooled, transfer to mason jars for canning pizza sauce and storage.

Variations of This Pizza sauce recipe for canning
- Feel free to add some spice to the pizza sauce by adding red chili flakes or a touch of sriracha.
- Change up the herbs, add more or less of your favorite, use fresh instead of dried.
- Add some fresh garlic. You really can’t go wrong adding more garlic to anything, in my opinion.
FAQs
Can I use Canned Tomatoes in my Homemade Pizza Sauce?
Of course! In fact, the recipe I’m sharing today is made with canned tomatoes. Canned tomatoes are perfect for making homemade pizza sauce. You can use whole or diced tomatoes, just make sure you are using plain tomatoes, with no spices added, since my recipe includes all the needed spices.
Can I use fresh tomatoes?
Yes, you can use fresh tomatoes in your pizza sauce.
One thing to note is that pizza sauce made with fresh tomatoes will be more watery. To counter-act the extra liquid, you could simmer the sauce longer to reduce the liquid, but a shortcut would be to squeeze out the extra liquid from the tomato before chopping it up. Also, one thing to note if you plan to can your pizza sauce made with fresh tomatoes, you will need to add 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice for acidity to each pint jar canned.
Can you Freeze Homemade Pizza Sauce?
Yes, you can freeze your pizza sauce instead of canning it. To freeze the pizza sauce, let the sauce cool completely. Pour sauce into to freezer-safe containers. (I like to use freezer bags.) The pizza sauce will last 3-4 months in the freezer.
How to Can Homemade Pizza Sauce
This is what the canning kit looks like:

The canning kit comes with a polypropylene rack and a fitted lifter, 3 1-pint jars and a recipe/instruction booklet. The lifter works in standard size stockpot. The Ball Home Canning Discovery Kit runs between $10 and $12 at Wal-mart and on Amazon.com.
Check out how easy it is to can your own pizza sauce:
While the pizza sauce was simmering (recipe found at the bottom of the post), I boiled the canning jars and lids to sterilize them. Once the sauce was ready, I used a funnel to fill the jars and then ran a rubber spatula around the inside of the jar to get out any air bubbles.

I carefully wiped down the edges of the jars since any food left on the rim might interfere with the lids sealing correctly. I tightened the lids, submersed the jars into boiling water using the canning rack and boiled them for twenty minutes.
After the twenty minutes were up. I left the jars in the water for another five minutes and then lifted the canning rack out of the pot using the attached handle.

After 12 to 24 hours, you can remove the lid band and check the seal on the inner lid. If it sticks, congratulations, you just canned!
Now add a pretty label and show off your not-so-hard work!

Looking for more recipes?
- Easy Mac and Cheese Pizza Recipe
- Easy Barbecue Chicken Pizza Recipe
- Chicken and Mushroom White Pizza
- Easy Oktoberfest Style Pizza
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Homemade Pizza Sauce Recipe
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: about 1.5 cups 1x
- Category: sauces
- Method: stovetop
Description
This Homemade Pizza Sauce Recipe is full of flavor and super easy to make. It will make your homemade pizzas taste so much better than store bought. Even better, I’m sharing my tried and true instructions for how to can homemade pizza sauce.
Ingredients
- 1 14 1/2 oz can of crushed tomatoes
- 1/8 cup of water
- 1 tsp of salt
- 1 1/2 tsp of sugar
- 1 tsp of garlic powder
- 1 tsp of onion powder
- 1 tsp of dried basil
- 1 tsp of dried oregano
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Instructions
- Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan or skillet and saute on medium until sauce begins to bubble.
- Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Notes
- If you find your sauce is not thick enough, simmer a bit longer.
- If you are using fresh tomatoes, you will need to add 1 tbsp of bottled lemon juice for acidity to each pint jar. (just stir it in)



Usually we can applesauce, jams and fruit, but the pizza sauce looks good to try too! Thanks for the recipe 🙂
I would love to can fruit and veggies, and this pizza sauce too, seriously, that stuff can get really expensive!
bfcourage at yahoo dot com
I'm your newest follower!
Very nice! My grandmother and aunt always canned green beans and creamed corn and they were the best! I would love to learn how and share this with my girls!
Thanks for the fun! Happy to have found your blog too! 🙂
I'm a new follower!
Briana @ babblingsandmore.blogspot.com
I would love to can jam!
A friends mother taught me this summer how to can my own jam- and I would LOVE to try that!!!
kaitlynn(dot)vogt(at)huskers(dot)unl.edu
I would love to learn how to can tomato sauce.
I would love to can some pumpkin butter. This time of year makes want to can everything. I also shared this on my facebook and following you now. have a blessed day.
This is right up my alley! Awesome post:)
I'm following you now through GFC! 🙂 🙂
What a great giveaway! 🙂 I'd can chili sauce! My family loves it! 🙂 craftycatrina (at) gmail
I'd love to make pickles.
I tweeted your giveaway-
http://twitter.com/#!/melissajenkins/status/116645053392371714
thanks again!
Melissa
I am your newest follower! I am just starting to can this year and need a beginners introduction! Thanks for the post and the giveaway!
Melika22@msn.com
I tweeted.
http://twitter.com/#!/frugalmomto4/status/116630249206325248
amanda.corley@ymail.com
I shared on Facebook
serenityspeaks at ymail dot com
Tweeted!
http://twitter.com/#!/serenityspeaks/status/116525330986041344
serenityspeaks at ymail dot com
I'm a new follower and email subscriber!
serenityspeaks at ymail dot com
I have always wanted to learn how to can! Everything from pizza and spaghetti sauce to jelly and jam! Thank you so much for this great giveaway!
serenityspeaks at ymail dot com