Homemade calzones made easy! Golden brown on the outside and warm and cheesy inside.
I love pizza style recipes. If there’s just one or two of you at home, a whole pizza just seems like too much. However, a calzone will do the trick because basically, it’s just a pizza rolled up and baked. The cool thing with a calzone is you can customize it to the way you want it and no sharing!
If you’re craving pizza but don’t want to do the whole delivery thing, homemade calzones are just the ticket. And, anything goes when it comes to what you stuff on the inside. Make it your own whether you want pepperoni or something more exotic like tofu or broccoli.
Calzones originated in Naples, Italy. It’s a rolled pizza and usually they are stuffed with meat such as ham or salami and accompanied by various types of cheeses. I like to shake it up with other ingredients such as shrimp, olives and artichoke hearts. The cool thing is you can stuff it with anything, making it a go to idea for cleaning up leftovers.
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Easy Homemade Calzones
Print recipe
| Serves | 2-4 |
| Prep time | 15 minutes |
| Cook time | 20 minutes |
| Total time | 35 minutes |
Ingredients
- 1 Tube refrigerated pizza crust dough (or your own favorite recipe)
- 1 cup Pasta Sauce (Jarred or your own recipe)
- 2oz sliced pepperoni
- 1 bratwurst (cooked and crumbled)
- 4oz Mozzerella Cheese (shredded)
- 1oz black olives (sliced)
- 4 Fresh Mushrooms (sliced)
- 1 clove Garlic (roughly chopped)
Note
You can easily make this a meat lovers version or a vegetarian version. Just pick and choose your own favorites!
Directions
| Step 1 | |
| Pre-heat the oven according to the dough's directions on the package. On a lightly floured surface, unroll the pizza dough and cut in half. By cutting it in half, it makes two pretty big calzones. If you want a smaller calzone, cut in quarters. | |
| Step 2 | |
|
Spoon a tablespoon of sauce on 1/2 of your rolled out dough. Layer your ingredients. For hubby, he had bratwurst, pepperoni, mushrooms and cheese. I had pepperoni, mushrooms and olives. Sprinkle the garlic chunks on top of the meat. Add a desired amount of shredded cheese on top and desired amount of sauce. Hubby likes a lot more sauce then I do so he covered his.  | |
| Step 3 | |
|
Roll the other half of the dough over the meat mix. Crimp down the edges and roll them like a pie crust. The goal here is to seal off the dough so none of the ingredients leak out during cooking.  | |
| Step 4 | |
| Place on an un-greased cookie sheet and bake according to the pizza dough directions. I added 5 minutes to mine since the calzones were huge. But it's usually done as soon as the top is golden brown | |
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How did my homemade calzones turn out?
Damn tasty if you ask me. These cooked up golden brown on the outside and hot and flavorful on the inside.
To simplify and save time, use refrigerated pizza dough. Cut the dough in half or quarters depending on the size of calzone you want. There are days when he pizza craving hits hard so I’ll make a giant one and enjoy the cheesy comfort food.
Time permitting, I’ll whip up a bath of homemade dough and freeze part of it for later use. It’s good to have on hand when you just want a small something with a salad on the side.
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Want a little side dish with your calzone?
Kathleen says
October 13, 2013 at 6:16 pmSo smart. My husband and I don’t like the same things on our pizza either. He likes meat and olives, I like veggies. This would solve that for sure.
Kathleen recently posted…Paper Covered Box
Mrs C says
October 20, 2013 at 6:16 pmGreat idea!! I think this might be one of my go to recipes this week:)
Rosevine Cottage Girls says
October 20, 2013 at 11:39 pmHi, this sounds wonderful. Now I am hungry. I think I will whip up a batch tomorrow for dinner. 🙂 Oh, we are here from the Chicken Chick link up.
Our blog is https://rosevinecottagegirls.blogspot.com and https://thelifeofanotsonormalamericanteenager.blogspot.com
angie says
October 21, 2013 at 6:45 amoh my tasty these would be hit in this house of young adults
come see what we shared at https://shopannies.blogspot.com
Linda says
October 25, 2013 at 2:12 pmComing from Diana Rambles Pin Party so I’m PINNING this recipe. I love calzones and would love to customize it, too! Thanks so much. Linda