Homemade Calzones – The Perfect Easy Dinner Recipe
It’s finally here! When I posted about these homemade calzones on Instagram, I got so many messages for the recipe. I didn’t even know I was a calzone fan until we started making these and now we make these homemade calzones weekly. If it were up to Austin, it’d be daily.
Every night when we sit down to eat dinner Aus asks me, “What was your inspiration for this dish?” Well, the inspiration for these mouth watering calzones were from a local place we went to for date night. Austin ordered a calzone and it was drool worthy. Between Covid, a baby, and being on a med student budget, we eat at home most of the time. I decided to attempt at making my own and that’s how these delicious homemade calzones came to be!
They are perfect for a date night in or a family night. Everyone can customize their own to how they like it!
What’s inside:
If you’re new here, you will quickly learn that I am big on veggies so I love mine loaded with veggies. I kept it simple with these and did:
- bell peppers
- white onion
- turkey sausage
- mozzarella
This is usually my go-to because I almost always have everything on hand. Another one of are favorites it doing bbq chicken calzones. I just do bbq sauce as the base and fill it up with chicken, red onion, pineapple, cheese, and then I like to add a green vegetable so either peppers, spinach, or arugula.
Make sure you plan ahead.
Don’t let the starting from scratch deter you. I know it can seem like a lot of work to start from scratch but these are seriously so simple! The dough is only made of flour, yeast, salt, water, and a little oil. The only thing you need to keep in mind is that the dough does need 1.5-2 hours to raise so just make sure you plan ahead!
Now for the recipe!
Easy Homemade Calzones
Ingredients
For the dough
- 2 cups all purpose flour I use organic, unbleached
- 3/4 tsp sea salt
- 1 1/4 tsp rapid instant yeast
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup hot water
For the filling
- 1 cup pizza sauce
- 1 cup mozzarella
- 2 cups chopped bell peppers
- 3/4 cup diced onion
- 1 cup turkey sausage
Instructions
For the dough
- Add flour, yeast, and salt to mixer. I use a Kitchenaid.
- Mix.
- While mixing, add olive oil.
- Then slowly add in the hot water while it's still mixing. Keep adding the water until the dough mixture gets slightly sticky. You shouldn't need the full cup of water but just under. Keep mixing until the dough starts to form a ball. Usually about 5 minutes.
- Place a dish towel over top of bowl and let rise for 1.5-2 hours or until dough has doubled in size.
- Split dough into 4 servings.
- Lay dough balls on cookie sheet and let rise for 20-30 more minutes.
For the calzones
- Preheat oven to 400° F.
- Roll dough balls into thin, long ovals.
- Lightly spread pizza sauce on half of the oval leaving a half inch around the edge free of sauce to seal the calzone. (You can put however much sauce you want but we just do a small amount and then dip the calzones in sauce after they are cooked).
- Add desired toppings.
- Spinkle lightly with garlic salt, oregano, and basil.
- Fold over calzones and using a fork, press down around the edges of the calzones.
- Paint the top of the calzones with either grass fed butter or olive olive then sprinkle with garlic salt, basil, and oregano.
- Bake 18-20 minutes or until the edges are a slight golden brown.
These are a favorite at our house so I hope you love them just as much.
Let me know how you filled yours and how they turned out!
If you need some more dinner ideas, check out some of my other recipes here.
XO,
TrainerKelli
