If you're following a ketogenic diet, you don't have to give up your favorite foods, including pizza! The key is to make smart substitutions, especially when it comes to the sauce. Most store-bought pizza sauces are loaded with added sugars and unnecessary ingredients, making them unsuitable for a low-carb lifestyle. Fortunately, making your own keto-friendly pizza sauce is incredibly easy, cost-effective, and allows you to control the ingredients.
This article provides a comprehensive guide to creating the perfect keto pizza sauce, complete with recipes, tips for storage, and ideas for using it in various dishes.
Why Make Your Own Keto Pizza Sauce?
There are several compelling reasons to make your own keto pizza sauce instead of buying it from the store:
- Avoid Added Sugars: Most commercial pizza sauces contain added sugars like high-fructose corn syrup, which can kick you out of ketosis.
- Control Ingredients: Making your own sauce allows you to use high-quality, organic ingredients and avoid unwanted additives and preservatives. If you want to use all organic ingredients or a particular tomato sauce brand, then cooking homemade allows you to have that control.
- Cost-Effective: Store-bought keto pizza sauces can be expensive, with brands like Rao's costing significantly more than a can of plain tomato sauce. You can make a quick, inexpensive, and low-carb pizza sauce that’s naturally flavorful and has a fraction of the carbs compared to store-bought pizza sauces.
- Flavor Customization: When you make your own sauce, you can adjust the seasonings and spices to suit your taste preferences.
- Dietary Compliance: This Pizza Sauce recipe is Keto-friendly, Low-carb, vegan, and gluten-free.
Basic Keto Pizza Sauce Recipe
This recipe is a great starting point for making your own keto pizza sauce. It's quick, easy, and requires only a handful of ingredients.
Ingredients:
- 16 oz can of Tomato sauce (ensure no sugar is added)
- 2-3 tablespoons Extra virgin olive oil
- 2-3 cloves Garlic, minced
- Oregano (to taste)
- Basil (to taste)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
- Measure out all ingredients.
- In a 5- 6 quart saute pan heat the olive oil over medium-high heat.
- Once the olive oil is hot add in the chopped garlic. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until fragrant and just starting to turn a light golden brown. Do not let the garlic burn.
- Pour in the tomato sauce and reduce the heat to low.
- Then stir in the oregano and basil.
- Mix until combined and the seasonings are well incorporated.
- Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened slightly.
This recipe creates about 2 1/2 to 3 cups of pizza sauce. I use about ½ cup of sauce for 8-inch cauliflower pizza crusts.
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Variations and Additions:
- Creamy Sauce: For a creamy, silky sauce, add 1-2 tablespoons of salted butter to the olive oil as you’re sauteing the garlic. Or Pour in 60ml or ¼ cup heavy cream or mascarpone for a creamy variation.
- Spicy Kick: Add crushed red pepper flakes to give your pizza sauce a spicy kick.
- Vegetables: Add chopped mushrooms, or other vegetables, into the sauce.
- Italian Seasoning: If you want to, use Italian Seasoning in place of the Oregano and Basil. That blend generally includes some rosemary as well.
- Fresh Garlic: So, you're a garlic lover? You can use fresh garlic in place of the garlic powder in this recipe. I'll let you decide how much. You can finely grate it and add it in raw, or mince and briefly saute the garlic before adding it to the sauce.
- Sweetener: Granulated sweetener of choice- Gives a dash of sweetness.
Keto Pizza Sauce with Canned Tomatoes
This keto pizza sauce recipe uses canned whole tomatoes that are puréed just before they are cooked to maximize flavor and garlic sautéed in lots of olive oil for that Italian garlic aroma.
Ingredients:
- 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes
- 4 tablespoons Extra virgin olive oil
- 4 cloves Garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
- After puréeing the tomatoes in a food processor, the crushed tomatoes are added to a saucepan of fragrant, sautéed garlic in olive oil and cooked over medium heat for up to 15 minutes.
- The sauce will thicken as it cooks.
- Preheat a medium saucepan over low heat, then add olive oil and garlic.
- Add tomato puree and increase heat to medium.
- Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened slightly.
Using Fresh Tomatoes
If you grow your own tomatoes and they are prime for the picking, go ahead and use fresh tomatoes. You don’t want to use store bought, fresh tomatoes during the winter season as they will not be as flavorful as canned tomatoes. If you grow your own tomatoes and they are prime for the picking, go ahead and use fresh tomatoes. I would roast them first with some olive oil and salt.
Storage Tips
Refrigerator:
- After the pizza sauce is cooked and cooled then pour the sauce into an airtight glass container.
- I use one or two 16-ounce mason jars to store leftover sauce in.
- The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. If you don’t use the pizza sauce within five days, then freeze.
- This sauce should stay fresh in the fridge, as long as it's well-sealed, for up to 5 days.
Freezer:
- Yes, you can freeze pizza sauce.
- After the sauce has finished cooking, let it cool.
- After it’s cooled, freeze into 1 - 1 ½ cup portions to use on pizza or other recipes later on.
- You may see that some water will separate from the tomatoes during the freezing process.
- Frozen pizza sauce will last in the freezer for up to six months.
- I actually suggest that you definitely freeze some of this sauce, or make extra and keep in in the freezer.
- On a busy weeknight, having dinner mostly prepped ahead of time is always helpful.
Freezing in Small Portions:
- Freeze any leftover pizza sauce in small portions so that you can easily reheat just a serving to use as a yummy dip.
- I like using a silicone ice cube tray for this.
- Before freezing, think about whether you'll be using the sauce in large or small portions. For smaller batches, freeze it in ice cube trays!
- Souper Cubes - This is my new favorite tool to freeze all kinds of sauces.
Ways to Use Keto Pizza Sauce
This keto pizza sauce is incredibly versatile and can be used in a variety of dishes:
- Keto Pizza: Use it on your favorite low-carb pizza crusts, such as fathead dough, almond flour crust, or cauliflower crust.
- Keto Marinara Sauce: As a simple keto marinara sauce over low carb pasta. We like it with palmini noodles or sauteed spiralized zucchini.
- Calzone: In calzone.
- Zucchini or Eggplant Parmesan: In zucchini or eggplant parmesan - a casserole bake with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.
- Dipping Sauce: Pizza sauce is a must have whenever we have dippable appetizers!
- Casseroles: Since making this sauce, I’ve been using it in anything I can, including pasta, casseroles, and even as a dipper for french fries!
- Enchiladas: My low carb pizza sauce also doubles up as a sauce for keto pasta and lasagna, enchiladas or any recipe where you need a really tasty marinara sauce.
- Cottage cheese pizza bowl: Try this cottage cheese pizza bowl!
Low Carb Pizza Crust Options
Low-carb pizza recipes have come a long way. Here are some favorite ideas for enjoying pizza without the carbs. Most of these options are low carb, keto-friendly, and gluten-free.
- Portobello mushroom caps: fill a portobello mushroom with your favorite pizza fixings, bake, and eat.
- Zucchini boats: Cut a zucchini in half, scoop out the seeds, layer with pizza ingredients, and then bake.
- Low Carb Ground chicken pizza crusts and fathead pizza crusts: both of these pizza crusts take a little more work to prepare. However, these keto pizza crusts are a great way to trick your brain into thinking you’re eating traditional pizza dough.
- Cauliflower pizza crust: You can make homemade cauliflower pizza or purchase store-bought. The Trader Joes brand is a favorite.
- Chicken breasts: top a chicken breast with pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni.
Low-Carb Pizza Topping Ideas
Where do I start with low-carb pizza toppings? There are so many options.Here are a few of my favorites.
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- Pepperoni
- Chicken sausage
- Shredded or diced chicken
- Ground beef
- Steak
- Italian sausage
- Deli sliced ham, capicola, or other Italian meats
- All different kinds of cheese
- Mushrooms
- Spinach
- Broccoli
- Zucchini
- Roasted cauliflower, broccoli, and asparagus
- Bell peppers
- Tomatoes
Alternatives to Tomato-Based Sauce
I CAN'T HAVE TOMATOES. We like to switch up our keto pizza sauce every once in a while for other styles of keto-friendly pizza sauce. Doing this allows us to make gourmet specialty pizzas and keep things interesting.
- Pesto: You can use pesto for your pizza sauce. It’s high in fat and flavorful. Top a pesto pizza with lots of cheese and your favorite keto veggies.
- Keto Ranch Dressing: You can also use a sugar-free, keto ranch dressing as a good sugar free pizza sauce option. Add grilled chicken and cooked bacon and you have a chicken bacon ranch pizza.
- Low Carb Keto White Pizza Sauce: This low carb keto white pizza sauce is super simple and only takes five minutes prep time from start to finish!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- How many carbs in keto pizza sauce? This keto pizza sauce contains 1.2g of net carbs per serving and 1.6g of total carbs.
- Is this a sugar-free pizza sauce? This recipe has no "added sugars". There are small amounts of sugar that come naturally in the tomatoes. The industry will regularly call something "sugar-free" when there is still natural sugars. If that is the test, then yes, it is sugar free.
- Is pizza sauce keto? Only if you make it at home. Store-bought sauces often include added sugars.
- Should pizza sauce be cooked? There is no need to cook this pizza sauce. The canned tomato sauce is already the perfect consistency and doesn't need to be cooked down further. If you want your sauce to be thicker you can put it in a pan on the stove and simmer until it's reduced a bit.
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