The most common sauce base in pizza is tomatoes. Good quality tomatoes are critical for your pizza, and you will definitely notice a difference if you use a cheap generic brand of canned tomatoes or sauce. It is best to use an uncooked tomato sauce that is bright, fresh and fragrant – not over spiced, or artificially sweetened. The sauce will cook perfectly in the time it takes your pizza to bake on your Mighty Pizza Stone.

If you can get hold of canned San Marzano whole tomatoes from Italy, they are the best choice for your pizza.

The San Marzano is Italy’s most famous plum tomato, grown in Campania (the home of pizza) since the Middle Ages. It has a tart flavor, firm pulp, red color, few seeds and its skin can easily be removed. Look out for the Protected Designation of Origin label (Denominazione d’ Origine Protetta) and batch number that guarantees you are buying authentic San Marzano tomatoes. Imitations will not taste the same because the authentic product is harvested by hand and each plant is handpicked several times with only the ripe fruit being picked each time. Imitation products use machines that harvest the whole plant in one go.

To make a simple yet authentic tomato sauce, use a potato masher or, better still, your hands, to mash a can of San Marzano tomatoes into a sauce. Use just the tomatoes, not the juice.

Make sure to try and get the right consistency – neither too thick, nor too watery. You want your sauce to spread easily on the pizza dough, without making it soggy. If you like a lot of sauce on your pizza, make your sauce a little thicker.

It is a bold move to remove tomatoes in your pizza equation. It can either be a hit or a miss. Some uses alfredo, basil pesto, barbecue, or sweet chili sauce as a tomato sauce substitute. For more basic, you can try simply infusing olive oil with garlic and brush it on your pizza crust.