Pizza is on weekly rotation at our house, and you can bet we've tried a lot of different takes on the tomato sauce base over the years! Last week we tried a new sauce from Lucini, which promised a "rich and tangy" pizza sauce made from 100% natural ingredients. We'll be the judge of that!
First of all, the phrase "100% natural" is a personal pet peeve and immediately puts us on our guard. After all, just about anything can be called "natural" with the right spin on it.
But a look at the ingredient list revealed nothing out of the ordinary. No gums or corn syrups here! Citric acid is used as a preservative and an ingredient listed only as "natural flavor" is always a bit disconcerting, but other than that, it's your basic sauce of tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and seasonings. (Check out the full list on the Lucini Italia website)
We tasted a spoonful before spreading it on our pizza. Yum! It tasted bright and tomato-y with a nice balance of garlic and herbs. There was also a noticeable lack of that tinny metallic taste we often notice in canned tomatoes and sauces. The sauce is thick, like cooked-down tomatoes, and we could see individual specs of ingredients in the puree. So far so good!
We spread it on the pizza and piled on our toppings. As we noted in our preliminary tasting, the sauce is thick and evenly pureed. It was easy to spread onto the dough and didn't leave any watery patches.
We like a fairly thin layer of sauce, and one can was enough to cover two of our roughly 12-inch pizzas with a little leftover (which was great mixed into a pasta sauce we made a few days later!).
Waiting for the pizza to bake and cool enough to eat is always the hardest part! The sauce thickened a little more in the heat of the oven, but not so much that it dried out. We thought it gave the whole pizza a richness without being overly assertive or overwhelming the other ingredients. It makes a mellow and tasty backdrop.
All in all, we all gave this sauce a thumbs up. It's a good classic-style sauce and is definitely one of the better ones that we've tried from the grocery store. It was a surprise, but we think it actually tastes pretty darn close to homemade!
Have any of you tried this pizza sauce from Lucini? What did you think?
Related: Video from Molly and Brandon of Orangette and Delancey: Two Tips on Making Great Pizza at Home
(Image: Emma Christensen)
How to Make Easy 3-Ingredient Energy Bars at Home
How To Cook Tender, Chewy Wheat Berries on the Stovetop
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Straw Mat from The ...
10 No-Fail Decor Tricks & Tips for Small Spaces
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
Never tried it or seen it in the stores but I'll have to keep an eye out. Pizza is also in our weekly/bi-weekly rotation and we usually just use whatever jarred pasta sauce we have on hand but I'd love to try something different.
I read in an online article about foods you should not eat that tomato products in a can were bad for you:
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-547963/
"The expert: Fredrick vom Saal, PhD, an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri who studies bisphenol-A
The problem: The resin linings of tin cans contain bisphenol-A, a synthetic estrogen that has been linked to ailments ranging from reproductive problems to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Unfortunately, acidity (a prominent characteristic of tomatoes) causes BPA to leach into your food. Studies show that the BPA in most people's body exceeds the amount that suppresses sperm production or causes chromosomal damage to the eggs of animals. "You can get 50 mcg of BPA per liter out of a tomato can, and that's a level that is going to impact people, particularly the young," says vom Saal. "I won't go near canned tomatoes."
The solution: Choose tomatoes in glass bottles (which do not need resin linings), such as the brands Bionaturae and Coluccio. You can also get several types in Tetra Pak boxes, like Trader Joe's and Pomi."