This is basically my pizza page. With pizza sauce, there are four principal directions. (Click here for pizza dough.)

No sauce

This is very un-American, but in Italy, pizza is a bit of a regional thing. Each region has its own practices and there are those that don’t put so much of a sauce as just olive oil and/or toppings. I’m not particularly conversant here, but this is what I’ve observed.

Pesto sauce

Oh, my. You haven’t had pizza until you’ve tried it with pesto sauce topped with thin slices of fresh mozzarella and thin slices of Roma tomatoes plus maybe some whole, fresh leaves of basil. The first time I made this, I nearly fainted it was so good. My wife did too only to find out several minutes later that she was at risk of dying from apoplectic shock: she’s discovered she’s allergic to pine nuts.

Alfredo sauce

Ensure the alfredo is not too thick and rich or it will overwhelm the toppings. Cubed chicken and garlic go well as toppings. So do spinach, artichoke and asparagus.

Tomato sauce

I like to use my pomarola sauce, but it’s a little rustic. In a pinch, you can mix lots of oregano and garlic into some canned tomato sauce, but that’s not as yummy as it could be. Be sure to add some sugar to counteract the acid in the tomatoes.

Standard pizza variations

There is little sense in going too far here; everyone has his or her own ideas anyway. I’m just going to list my favorites here and add two un-favorites.

1. Brick Oven Restaurant’s Combination: grated mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, finely chopped onion, finely chopped green bell pepper, chopped olives, grated mozzarella with a sprinkling of cheddar.
2. Brick Oven Restaurant’s Deluxe: as above, but add chopped tomato.
3. Canadian bacon and mushroom: grated mozzarella, Canadian bacon slices, mushrooms (both canned or fresh work well, but canned are nicer because they’ve marinated whereas fresh will dry out.
4. Tomato, basil and mozzarella: See recipe above under Pesto sauce.
5. Pepperoni and cheese: grated mozzarella cheese, pepperoni and more cheese.
6. Meat-lover’s: grated mozzarella cheese, Canadian bacon, pepperoni, Italian sausage and more cheese. (I’m not a huge fan of this: I love vegetables.)
7. Hawaiian Delight: (I don’t like this, but it’s über-popular west of the Mississippi) mozzarella cheese, Canadian bacon, pineapple chunks, sometimes slivered almonds.
8. BBQ: I really hate this too, it’s quite popular around here, but I don’t know how to make it and don’t care. It appears to involve BBQ sauce, some kind of pulled meat, maybe chicken, and who knows what else? I bit into one of these once: I just spat it out.