We needed something cheesy, saucy, and warm, so we made calzones. They are very easy to make, and the only preparation is to make or take out that pizza dough from the freezer the night before or if made, a few hours ahead of time to let the dough rise. Calzones will offer a warm comfort from the cool nights ahead.
Cheese and Meat Stuffed Calzone
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 2-6 calzones
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- Pizza dough (homemade or store-bought)
- Handful of mozzarella cheese
- Few scoops of ricotta cheese
- Olive Oil
- Anything else you want to put in…(chicken, meatballs, steak, spinach, etc)
- Wax paper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
- Roll out the pizza dough into small discs or squares.
- Prepare any ingredients you want to add into your calzones. The goal is to end up with 2 cups TOTAL of all ingredients combined. For the cheese and sauce one for Fatima, we spread out sauce on the inside of the dough, and added 2 cups of mozzarella and ricotta cheese combined. For Brian’s buffalo chicken, we cooked up some chicken, mixed in some buffalo sauce, spread out onto the dough and topped off with ricotta and mozzarella cheese.
- When you spread out the ingredients, make sure to keep them in the middle of the dough. In the next step, we’re going to enclose it.
- Fold over the dough and pinch the edges together. Feel free to make them fancy or just fold the edges into them selves (as in the picture). You’ll end up with large, raw “hot pockets.”
- Transfer these over to a cooking sheet covered by a sheet of wax paper.
- Using a brush, brush olive oil over the outside of the dough. This will help to give the calzones that golden brown finish when it cooks.
- Make another calzone and transfer over to the cooking sheet.
- Send the calzones into the oven for about 15 minutes, rotate the cooking sheet 180 degrees, and cook for another 15 minutes.
- Let cool for at least 10 minutes and enjoy!
We loved making these, and so happy that we wanted different flavors. This gave us the opportunity to experiment with this new dish. If you make some calzones on Sunday and put in the freezer, you’d be able to enjoy this delicious dish all week long.
