Marinara Pizza Recipe

Who doesn't love pizza? Those who don't eat meat or cheese can enjoy a delicious vegan pizza. This marinara pizza recipe will please even the pickiest of eaters. Anyone can make this at home with simple ingredients and easy instructions. So roll up your sleeves and get started - you'll love this pizza!

You don't have to be a culinary master to nail this recipe; it's all about embracing the simplicity and authenticity of Italian food. With just a few carefully chosen ingredients and minimal prep time, you'll have a meal that transports you straight to an Italian piazza.

And hey, if you're short on time or ingredients, there are plenty of substitutes you can play around with!

This recipe can be a show-stopping main dish or a relaxed weeknight dinner, inspired by our traditional vegan cheese pizza recipe. However, there are a couple of tweaks focused more on handling and managing the few toppings to achieve the perfect texture, not too much sauce, just the right amount of extras.

Jump to:

• 🧾 Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 💡 Baking Tips
• 👨🏻‍🍳 Flour
• 📖 Variations
• 🥢 How to serve
• 📚 More dough recipes
• 📋 Recipe
• 💬 Reviews and Comments

🧾 Ingredients

You have two components, the dough and the sauce.

Pizza dough ingredients

• Bread Flour: Provides the dough with a higher protein content, giving your pizza that desirable chewy texture. It's the secret to a crust that's both crispy and tender.
• Extra-Virgin Olive Oil: Adds a rich, fruity flavor to the dough and helps in achieving that golden-brown crust. Plus, it's packed with healthy fats that are good for your heart.
• Dry Yeast: The leavening agent that makes the dough rise, creating a light and airy crust. It's what brings the "lift" to your pizza party.
• Brown Sugar: Helps to activate the yeast and adds a subtle sweetness to balance out the savory elements. It's like the wingman to your yeast, ensuring it performs its best.
• Salt: Enhances the flavors of all the other ingredients and controls the yeast's activity. Think of it as the conductor of your pizza symphony, making sure every note is perfect.

Marinara sauce (pizza sauce) ingredients

• tomato sauce
• fresh basil
• extra-virgin olive oil
• garlic

Optionally: oregano and season with salt and brown sugar to balance acidity.

🔪 Instructions

Knead the pizza dough

Make the marinara pizza sauce

Stir-fry the minced garlic in olive oil on medium heat.

Add tomato sauce (canned tomatoes and crushed tomatoes also work).

Then, add the dried oregano, basil leaves, sugar, and salt.

Cook the sauce on medium-low heat with a lid for 20 minutes until the liquid has reduced by one-third. Stir it halfway.

Taste and adjust with salt and pepper or red pepper flakes to make it a hot sauce.

Extend the pizza dough.

It is important to stretch the pizza dough ball delicately to keep as much as air in, so after you make a dough ball the size of a baseball, stretch it slightly with your fingers and then place it in the oiled baking pan, pressing with your finger from the center to the edges.

Step 5: Place the sliced garlic cloves on top and a drizzle of olive oil.

💡 Baking Tips

The moment to put the pizza in the oven is perhaps one of the most important because wrong cooking could nullify all our sacrifices in the blink of an eye!

Remember that the oven must be heated very well first, to at least 250 degrees (the high temperature is essential to cook the pizza at its best).

If you have an electric oven, remember that this tends to heat up more in the back, so remember to rotate the pizza from time to time to obtain homogeneous cooking.

Put a container with water on the bottom of the oven to ensure the heat is even in the oven.

Top tip: don't open the oven until the pizza is cooked!

👨🏻‍🍳 Flour

To have an airier pizza, use half all-purpose flour(Type 00) and half strong flour (Type 0). If you do, allow at least one extra hour for proofing, as type = flour has more strength to proof, given that it has a larger protein content; thus, more time allows for the proofing to fully develop.

You can even use 100% Type 0 flour, in which case, allowing for a minimum of 4-6 hours of proofing and even overnight would be ideal.

📖 Variations

This easy homemade pizza sauce can vary with simple ingredients because you can easily replace Marinara sauce's components with kitchen staples like Italian seasoning. You can also use onion powder and garlic powder to replace the fresh condiments version.

Even dried oregano works well. The only ingredient I wouldn't change to make the sauce delicious is the fresh basil, as dried basil doesn't really taste the same.

See all the tips for making a great homemade marinara sauce that can be used as spaghetti sauce pasta, dipping sauce for crostini, or as a base for a vegetarian lasagna.

If you have more time and are feeling fancy, we recommend this roasted tomato pizza sauce we made for a change. We loved it!

🥢 How to serve

Fresh Green Salad: An spinach and arugula salad or a simple mix of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and a lemon and olive oil dressing will complement the freshness of the marinara pizza perfectly.

Antipasti Platter: Put together a platter with olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and slices of Italian pickled eggplant. These Mediterranean flavors will enhance the taste of the pizza.

Roasted Vegetables: Roast a tray of veggies. If you need inspiration, check out our previous post for vegan honey-roasted vegetables.

Infused Water: Refresh your meal with cucumber and lemon-infused pineapple ginger cucumber water.

Light Red Wine: A glass of light red wine, such as Chianti or Pinot Noir, will pair perfectly with the flavors of the marinara pizza.

📚 More dough recipes

See how to make your own vegan pasta dough, vegan empanadas dough, Italian pagnotta easy bread loaf, basic pizza dough, and focaccia bread.

📋 Recipe