Your Guide to the Ultimate Pizza Base: Tomatoes & Cheese Explained

When it comes to great pizza, toppings are where you get to be creative - but they can also make or break the final result. Get the sauce right, choose the right cheese, and suddenly your home-oven pizza tastes like it came from a real pizzeria in Italy. So in this post, let’s talk through the basics - tomato, cheese and what options you have available in the UK.

Choosing the Right Tomatoes

Your tomato base is the foundation of the entire pizza. Even with incredible dough and a blazing-hot baking steel, the wrong sauce will hold you back. Luckily, great pizza sauce is incredibly simple and these days - very accessible.

Canned Tomatoes vs. Fresh Tomatoes

For pizza, good canned tomatoes almost always beat fresh. Fresh tomatoes vary wildly in sweetness, acidity, and water content, meaning they can make your base too watery or too dull. There are also plenty of great options for pre-made pizza sauces - I like to use Mutti classica sauce as the consistency is great and one tin goes a long way.

Whole Tomatoes vs. Pre-Crushed

Always go for whole peeled plum tomatoes where possible. They tend to be better quality than pre-crushed versions. But be careful not to use a blender - instead, mill the tomatoes or hand crush to avoid splitting the seeds (which give off a bitter taste).

Should You Season Pizza Sauce?

For Neapolitan-style pizza, keep it minimal:

- A pinch of salt

- Optional: a small amount of basil, or a teaspoon of olive oil after spreading.

Say Cheese

The cheese you choose has a massive impact on melt, browning, and moisture levels - especially in a home oven on a carbon steel.

Fior di Latte (my favourite)

Italian cow’s milk mozzarella, fresh, mild, and creamy. Perfect for classic Margherita and the best part is that it doesn't leak moisture when baking. I get mine from Mercanti Imports here in the UK.

Buffalo Mozzarella

Richer, tangier, and more luxurious. Drain well and pat dry before use (or apply post-bake).

Low-Moisture Mozzarella

Firmer, browns well (can burn), great for home-oven pizzas. Ideal for mixing with fresh mozzarella.

Great pizza doesn't need to be complicated. Start with quality tomatoes, choose the right mozzarella for the style you want, and rely on classic, flavour-packed toppings that shine in a hot oven.

Got your own favourite cheese and tomato combo? Head over to Instagram and let us know:

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