Hey Jan,
Thank you for joining the Pizza Club!
Recently, I sent the below email to my list and a bunch of people replied telling me how much better it made their pizza. So, I like to share it with every new sign up because it really is that powerful.
Check it out, try it, and let me know how it goes!
Charlie
P.S. Want to make perfect pizza every single time? Click here to learn how to overcome the biggest challenges in making and stretching pizza dough.
This will change the way you make pizza sauce
Have you ever wondered why some homemade pizzas fall flat while others burst with flavor? The secret lies in one simple, often overlooked step that most pizza makers get wrong: seasoning. But this isn’t about herbs and spices.
By learning to season your sauce properly, you can transform your pizza from good to unforgettable. So today, we’ll be diving deep into the art of seasoning.
I’ll explain:
- What it ACTUALLY means to season your sauce
- Why seasoning makes a such a huge difference in the flavor of your pizza, and
- A step-by-step process to season your sauce perfectly every time
So if "seasoning" isn’t about herbs and spices, then what exactly do I mean?
Well, I define seasoning as anything that enhances (or amplifies) the flavors of your food. For that reason, spices like oregano and thyme aren’t considered “seasonings” because they don’t enhance the existing flavors - instead, they add their own flavor.
So, the most obvious (and most common) seasoning is salt. As you know, salt massively enhances the flavor of whatever you add it to, and here’s a simple experiment you can perform to prove it: take two fresh tomato slices and season one with a light sprinkling of salt, while leaving the other slice plain. Taste the plain slice, then taste the salted slice. The difference will amaze you!
With this said, salt certainly isn’t the only useful seasoning. You can also season your food with acids like vinegar or citrus juice, or a source of sweetness like sugar or honey. Even spices like red or black pepper can go a long way to enhance the flavors of your pizza sauce.
So, how do you season your sauce properly?
In short, it's all about using the proper amount of salt, but that’s not always as easy as it sounds! There are a lot of factors that affect the flavor of your pizza sauce, including: what brand of tomatoes you're using, how much sauce you put on your pizza, your baking method, whether you cook the sauce before it goes on the pizza, etc.
So here’s what I recommend you do in order to nail the salt content every time:
- Start with 4g of salt per 28oz can of tomatoes (or 15g per #10 can).
- Top the pizza and bake it using your normal baking method.
- Taste the pizza.
- If the sauce tastes noticeably “salty”, reduce the salt content by 0.5 grams, and repeat steps 2-4. If the sauce doesn’t taste noticeably salty, increase the salt content by 0.5 grams, and repeat steps 2-4. Once the sauce tastes extremely flavorful but not salty, you've nailed it!
You’ll notice that I recommend pushing the salt content higher and higher with each bake until it becomes too much. This is necessary because although you might “ruin” a pizza or two in the process of figuring out your upper salt threshold, it’s a learning experience that will pay huge dividends going forward!
So, try this out with your next pizza and let me know how it goes!
I’ll talk to you in the next one!
Charlie
