Low sodium pizza sauce

A bold low sodium pizza sauce that keeps for weeks in the freezer.

Servings: Makes 1 1/2 cups

Sodium: Depends on the tomato sauce/paste you use but it will be very low

Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 14-15 ounce can of unsalted tomato sauce, or a 6-7 ounce can of unsalted tomato paste

2 tablespoons white sugar

2 teaspoons molasses

1 tablespoon dried basil

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1/3 to 1/2 cup hot water to thin out the sauce if you're using tomato paste

1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1-2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced

About the ingredients: I love the taste of some brands of tomato paste but not others so I'll use paste or sauce depending on what's available at the store. If you use paste, you'll need to thin out the sauce a bit with some hot water. With sauce, you won't need to do this and you may even want to cook the sauce down a bit to thicken it up. Or use some combination of tomato sauce and paste. Molasses is a new ingredient in this sauce. If you don't have molasses, substitute the sugar with dark or light brown sugar.

Here's how to make this: Combine all the ingredients EXCEPT balsamic vinegar in a small pot and heat on low until the sugar is dissolved and the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Then add the balsamic vinegar. Dried herbs are great but if you have fresh basil, chop it up small and throw it in the sauce with your garlic at the end. If you love that sharp bite of raw garlic, don't cook the garlic with the sauce and add it last.

TIPS:

-A note on the sodium content. I used Bionaturae No Salt Added Tomato Paste, which allegedly has 0 mg of sodium. I'm a bit skeptical of this because I know tomatoes have sodium, and even no salt tomato sauce has sodium, so how can this tomato paste have zero sodium? That said, the only ingredient is tomato so I'm confident that it's very low in sodium. The lesson here is to take the sodium content on this recipe with a grain of (ahem) salt and double check the label on your tomato paste.

-This sauce can be used right away, or make it a day in advance and refrigerate

overnight. It will get a little thicker in the fridge, so add a little hot water 1 tablespoon at a time to get it back to the right consistency. It also freezes well.