Spicy Vodka Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons (25 g) extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium (about 8 oz. or 226 g) onion small dice
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 3 tablespoons (43 g) Vodka
• 1 28-ounce (794 g) can whole peeled tomatoes give 3-4 pulses in blender
• ⅓ cup (76 g) heavy cream
• ¾ teaspoon red pepper flakes
• salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste

Instructions

1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, heat the oil until shimmering. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until softened, for about 3 minutes.
2. Add the red pepper flakes and stir until fragrant, for about 30 seconds.
3. Add the vodka and scrape the bottom of the pan to release any stuck-on brown bits.
4. Add the tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has reduced significantly and is thick, 25 to 30 minutes.
5. Add the heavy cream and stir gently to combine. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for an additional 8 to 10 minutes until the sauce is somewhat thickened.
6. Remove saucepan from heat and let the sauce cool to room temperature. Use immediately, or transfer to a lidded container and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Makes 2¼ cups (600 g)

Notes

1. Use about ⅓ to ½ less diced medium onion (140-150 grams).
2. Use the garlic press to “mince” the garlic cloves.
3. Try using about half of the red pepper flakes (⅓ to ½ tsp.).
4. Use the 9½” 3-quart straight-sided saucepan from the corner under-counter rack (or use the 4-quart saucepot, from the cabinet below the oven, to prevent splatter.)

25 July 2026: We made this for the first time today, for use on our grandma pizza. It worked out very well, with some changes that we made on the fly. We cut down the amount of onions significantly because the full amount seemed like way too much. Same story for the red pepper flakes. The sauce is still quite spicy when eaten by itself, but it was perfect on the pizza. Next time, we will reduce the sauce a bit less because it because quite thick once the cream was added and the sauce was refrigerated. We will also use a bit more sauce on the pizza (about 1¼ cup instead of 1 cup). When we made the pizza, we added a layer of Cooper cheese directly on top of the dough, and then added the sauce on top of the cheese. We sprinkled the sauce with a good amount of Pecorino Romano. Next time, we may also try mixing in some parmesan. We baked the pizza on rack 2 for 14 minutes, rotating after 7 minutes as usual. We slipped it out of the pan and, wanting the bottom crust to be a bit darker, used our pizza peel to put it back onto the bottom rack for another 2 minutes. Perfect!

29 July 2026: We made our round pizza using this vodka sauce, and it was an excellent experiment. As usual, we used an American cheese on top of the crust (either Wegmans or Cooper Sharp) and then put about a cup of the vodka sauce on top of the American cheese. We sprinkled it quite heavily with pecorino romano and parmesan. I preheated the stone on rack 2 for about an hour before we put the pizza in, with the oven set to 500°F. After the preheat, the oven thermometer was showing 550°F, so while Rich was topping the pizza crust, I turned the oven temperature down to 445°F. We baked it for 12 minutes total, with the oven turned off for the last minute. It came out perfect! We topped it with a chiffonade of basil just before serving.

5 August 2026: This mid-week pizza was very similar to last week’s, but this time we added some pulled pork to half of it. I wasn’t sure if the flavor of the pork would get lost among all the other flavors, but it stood out well (maybe thanks to the black pepper in the pulled pork) and we both really liked it. We baked it exactly like last week. We used Wegmans American cheese, the two grated cheeses on top of the sauce, and added the chiffonaded basil before serving (to both the plain and pork slices).