An Italian style turnover, like a pizza folded in half, this homemade Calzone is a delicious Italian bread stuffed with Mozzarella cheese and toppings ranging from sweet Italian sausage, olives, and mushrooms, to peppers, onions, garlic and other favorites.
Where's the sauce?
Unlike pizza, Calzone doesn't have sauce. Instead, we like to serve our Calzone with a simple Marinara sauce on the side. It's fun to dip individual bites of Calzone in the sauce, or just pour sauce over the entire Calzone to enjoy.
Homemade Calzone is great either hot or cold. We love it best fresh out of the oven, but it’s delicious the next day for lunch or a picnic as well!
This recipe is adapted from “Rosemary’s Calzone” by Julia Child. The crust has a slightly crisp exterior but inside the bread is soft. Bread absorbs the flavors of your toppings as it cooks, and it is so good.
A fun activity
Making Calzone can be a fun family activity. It's also a great way to entertain guests. Every year before Christmas, we have my husband's office staff over to make Calzone. We have the dough made and the toppings ready to go. It's fun to chat while we're rolling out the dough and piling on toppings.
Making the dough
Making the doughI like to use my Cuisine Art food processor with a dough blade to mix the dough, but you can also do it very easily by hand (I’ll include directions for both.)
You roll or pat a personal-sized ball of dough into a pizza-like circle about 8 inches across. Leaving a ½ inch space around the edge of the Calzone, you brush the surface of your circle with a garlic/olive oil mixture.
What's your favorite filling?
Next fill half of the circle with the filling ingredients of your choice. Start and end with Mozzarella cheese (this will help “glue” everything together as the cheese melts.)
After filling, sprinkle ingredients with a bit of salt, then drizzle a slice of lemon juice over all ingredients. My advice: don't skip the lemon. This little squeeze of lemon juice is the magic of this recipe!
Next bring the top half of the dough over the filling to cover and pinch the edges together firmly to seal (this should hold if you didn’t get oil near the edges.)
Just before you bake
Brush garlic oil lightly over the top of your calzone. Sprinkle with salt if desired.
Identify your work
We like to decorate the top surface of each Calzone to help identify ingredients or to identify the owner! It makes a nice garnish too.
You can bake the calzone on a cookie sheet or any baking pan, but we think it comes out best when baked on a pizza stone. Calzone cooks very quickly -- only 13 minutes in a hot 450 degree oven.
You will love this Homemade Calzone. Your family will love this Homemade Calzone. Everyone you share it with will love this Homemade Calzone. Anytime of the year is the right time to make Calzone. Give it a try!
Enjoy!
Dianna
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Homemade Calzone
Ingredients
Calzone Dough
- 1 tablespoon dry-active yeast
- ½ cup warm water not over 110 degrees
- ¼ teaspoon sugar
- ¾ cup cold milk
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
Filling Ingredients
- 1 large sweet Italian sausage
- 24 slices pepperoni
- 1 medium green pepper sliced thin
- 1 medium yellow or red pepper sliced thin
- 1 medium onion sliced
- ½ cup mushrooms; sliced
- Garlic Oil ¼ cup olive oil mixed with 4 minced garlic cloves
- Sea salt to taste
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 cups Mozzarella cheese grated
- 4 Tablespoons minced parsley
- 6 lemon wedges
- ¼ cup black olives sliced
- ¼ cup green olives sliced
- ¼ cup pepperonccini peppers or banana peppers, sliced
- ¼ cup artichoke hearts cut up
Marinara Sauce
- 32 ounce jar of your favorite Marinara sauce I prefer a tomato-basil flavor.
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 2 cloves garlic minced OR 1 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
For the Dough
- Whisk the yeast, warm water and sugar in a small bowl and let it rest and bubble about five minutes. Blend the milk into the ready yeast mixture.
- Mix the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add in yeast-mixture, oil, and mix until a dough forms. Let the dough rest about 5 minutes (it’ll be really soft.)
- Turn dough out onto your lightly floured counter or board. Knead 50 strokes by hand, give a 2-minute rest, and knead 20 more strokes to make a soft, smooth dough.
- Lightly grease large mixing bowl and place dough inside. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp dish cloth and allow to rise until double in a warm spot about one hour. While dough is rising, prepare filling ingredients.
Filling Calzone
- Prick the sausage and let it steam; cut the sausage into thin crosswise slices.
- Cut the onions, peppers and mushrooms and let them steam a bit. (They won’t take up as much space this way and you’re insured they are cooked through.)
Forming Calzone
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees with the baking stone(s) about 20 minutes before baking the calzone.
- Roll or pat each dough ball into a pizza-like circle about 8-inches across. Use a small amount of flour to keep from sticking only if needed.
- Turn out onto your work surface and divide for desired number of calzones (6 pieces for individual calzone; 3 pieces for larger 2 person calzones.) Form each dough portion into a smooth ball and let it rest about 10 minutes.
- Leave a ½ inch space around the edge of the Calzone: Paint the surface of your circle with the garlic/olive oil mixture. Now fill half of the circle with the filling ingredients of your choice. Start and end with Mozzarella cheese (this will help “glue” everything together as the cheese melts.)
- After filling, sprinkle ingredients with a bit of salt and a little parsley, then drizzle a juice from a lemon juice over all ingredients and add the last Mozzarella.
- Bring the top half of the dough over the filling to cover and pinch the edges together firmly to seal (this should hold if you didn’t get oil near the edges.)
- Brush garlic oil lightly over the top of your calzone. Sprinkle with salt if desired and/or decorate the top surface to help identify ingredients or just to garnish.
- Remove pizza stone(s) from your oven and place calzone on stones. Return to oven and bake about 10 minutes at 450 degrees (check to make sure dough is golden.)
- Serve warm with Marinara sauce.
Marinara Sauce
- Add oregano and garlic to sauce in a medium sauce pan. Heat sauce to simmer and keep warm until ready to serve.
Notes
Nutrition
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