Pasta is a quick and easy meal that’s delicious and filling, especially if you have a premade jar of tomato sauce. But if you find yourself craving pasta and don’t have pasta sauce, you might be tempted to look at that pizza sauce you were saving for later.
After all, aren’t the two pretty much the same thing?
But is putting pizza sauce on pasta even worth it? Can you effectively use pizza sauce on pasta?
You can put pizza sauce on pasta since both of them are tomato-based sauces. Pasta sauce is ready cooked with more seasoning, so to get pizza sauce to taste similar, you’ll need to cook the pizza sauce and season it yourself.
Turns out, there’s a lot that goes into making pizza sauce taste like pasta sauce, but it’s a doable task that isn’t too time consuming. It will just take you a little bit of prep work to get all the flavors to match up perfectly.
The rest of this article will walk you through how to get that pasta sauce like consistency and make your pizza sauce the perfect addition to your pasta meal.
The Difference between Pasta Sauce and Pizza Sauce
The main difference between tomato sauce and pizza sauce aren’t apparent. After all, they’re both a mix of tomatoes, herbs, and spices, right? Well, the key difference lies in their primary uses. Pizza sauce is made to be baked with the pizza, cooking it in the process.
In addition, since pizzas usually have a lot of flavor ingrained in the dough, sprinkled on top, or added with various ingredients, pizza sauce doesn’t vary much from the tried and true ingredients that blend well with the pizza.
Garlic, oregano, basil, olive oil, and sugar are among the most popular flavors.
Pasta sauce, on the other hand, can vary greatly in ingredient choice, since there’s a lot of different flavors that work well with pasta. One major difference between the two is that pizza sauce is a lot sweeter, which can make it difficult to incorporate into a pasta dish.
In fact, pizza sauce isn’t usually as flavorful as your standard marinara. Too much flavor in the pizza sauce would be to detract from the benefits of the spices in the pizza dough, the seasonings added on top, and, of course, the ingredients themselves.
If you think about it, in a simple meal of pasta and tomato sauce, the sauce is doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to developing the flavor of the dish.
As such, pasta sauce often has a lot more variety in flavor and ingredients to allow for many complimentary flavors.
The vast difference in flavor profiles will leave you feeling unsatisfied if you just pour over some plain pizza sauce on your pasta, and if you want a good hearty meal, it’s definitely worth going the extra mile to make your substitute taste that much better.
How to Use Pizza Sauce for Pasta
The best part about flavorful pizza sauces is that they don’t need much work― all of the necessary flavors and spices are there, you just need to dial back the sweetness a tad by adding crushed or diced tomatoes.
For plain pizza sauce, you’ll want to throw some garlic, onions, and some spices and herbs to the mix to add some zing.
Adding liquid is important when converting a pizza sauce for use on pasta.
Pizza sauces need to be thick because a thin one would just make for a soggy pizza. Pasta sauce, on the other hand, is usually thinner to allow a pour-over onto pasta.
To manage the consistency, you can add the aforementioned crushed or diced tomatoes, water, or a splash of red wine or bouillon.
Because pizza sauce is traditionally made from uncooked tomatoes and is intended to be cooked alongside the pizza, you will need to simmer your pizza sauce for 10 minutes to bring out the flavors.
Method for Making Instant Pasta Sauce with Pizza Sauce
Hoping for a quick, tasty meal, you pull out a box of pasta and suddenly realize― oh, no! You only have pizza sauce. Well, never fear. Here’s an easy way to convert your pizza sauce to use with pasta.
- Cook your pasta
- Shortly before pasta is done, heat oil in a pan
- Add pizza sauce to the pan
- Thin out your pizza sauce by adding a quarter to half a cup of pasta water
- Bring to a simmer and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally
- Season as needed
- Serve over pasta
If you have a flavored pizza sauce, you probably won’t have to worry about spicing the flavor up too much, but if you have a plain one, then you can add some taste by incorporating onion and garlic into your dish.
Frying up some onions, garlic, and crushed tomato before adding your pizza sauce is a great way to add some variety to a plain pizza sauce.
The Verdict
Yes, you can absolutely substitute pizza sauce in the place of pasta sauce― you just have to go the extra mile to get the flavor on point. Pizza sauce is usually thicker than pasta sauce and needs thinning out to have the right consistency.
In addition, pizza sauce is often a lot sweeter than pasta sauce, so to dial back the sweetness, you can add some water or crushed/diced tomatoes to the mix.
The best part is that substituting pizza sauce doesn’t take much work at all, and you can have the perfect substitute pasta sauce in a matter of minutes.
For a plain pizza sauce, make sure that you fry up some onions and garlic before adding sauce to your pan and toss in some fresh herbs and spices to bring out that rich flavor and make sure to thin out the sauce a bit.
With just a bit of prep work, you can turn a regular pizza sauce into the perfect pour-over for pasta!