Calzones
Mmm.. Calzones. Calzones bring back lots of memories. I split a calzone for two on one of my first real dates. It was safer than splitting the spaghetti and risking a Lady and the Tramp moment. :) Calzones were one of the first dinners I made for Kevin after we got married, and probably the first meal I served for our first guest in our first apartment. I actually picked this recipe up in a speech class in college. We were to give a 5 min demonstration as we were speaking and one of the cute college boys demonstrated how to make these calzones. Unfortunately, he never made them for me, but luckily, I did come away with the recipe. I figured if they were easy enough for a college guy to make, I could definitely handle it. :p And so can you! :) This recipe is super quick and easy and very, very yummy. It makes enough for 3-4 people, or two very hungry college boys.
Calzones
1 can Pillsbury Refrigerated Pizza Dough
1 lb Italian sausage
1 pkg pepperonis
2 cups shredded cheese
Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp butter
Preheat oven to 375. Brown and drain sausage. Spray a rectangular baking sheet with Pam, and then roll out pizza dough thin and flat. Make layers of cheese, sausage and pepperoni on one half of dough, until desired amount. Fold the other half of the dough on top of the meat and cheese, and press edges together with a fork. Melt the butter and brush over the top of the calzone, then sprinkle parmesan cheese over it. Cook at 375 for 25 mins or until top is golden brown.
Here are the ingredients…
Alright now here’s the deal with the pizza dough. See how it says “Now with 33% MORE!!!” on the can?? Well, I’ve been making these calzones since before they gave us 33% more, and I liked it better when they were stingy with the dough. Before we had that extra 33%, it was the perfect amount of dough for calzones, now, unfortunately, I’m usually left a little too much dough. Well, 33% too much really. So if you can find a can that doesn’t have 33% more, get that one! :) But all I can ever find these days are the Super Sized 33% more can. :p It’s 13.8 oz, so, if I remember anything from 7th grade algebra, I think the smaller cans used to be 10.4 oz. But I had a huge crush on the boy who sat in front of me that year so I may be wrong. ;)
And another thing about the dough… I’ve shared this recipe with a few people so far and a few of them have come back to tell me that they hated the Pillsbury Pizza dough (it just didn’t work out for some reason or another) so they went to a local pizzeria and bought pizza dough from them. The results are unanimous. They LOVED it!! I really need to try that sometime. Or maybe find a really good homemade pizza dough recipe! As long as it doesn’t require a breadmaker. Anyone have one?? :)
Okay! Now that we have the dough taken care of… Wherever you got it from… Roll it out on a baking sheet. Or pan. This was actually the first time I used a bar pan to make calzones, usually I use a rectangular baking sheet. But I got this bar pan for Christmas so I thought I’d give it a try and see how it worked out. Plus this is the one that was on top of the pile of baking sheets, so I decided it must’ve been fate. Or laziness. Whatever.
Roll out the dough thin and flat. It cooks more evenly, plus I like a thin, crispy crust. :D
Now start adding the good stuff to one side of the calzone. I start with half of the sausage I browned. Be sure to leave about an inch all the way around for when you close up the calzone.
Then I add some cheese
And some pepperonis
And a little more cheese
Then the other half of the sausage
Then uh, yeah, more cheese
More pepperonis
And finally, the last of the cheese
Now grab the other half of the calzone
And fold it over
Smoosh the edges together real good.
This is where I decided I liked using the bar pan, cause even if I didn’t leave enough of an edge to smoosh the edges together good enough, the bar pan kept everything in place.
Now melt 2 tbsp of butter and brush it over the top of the calzone.
Then sprinkle with Parmesan cheese
Until it’s all nice and covered in buttery cheesiness.
Put it in the oven and bake at 375 for about 25 mins or until the top is golden brown. Like this:
Look at all that layered goodness
Now if you happen to have some pizza sauce on hand, which I did, leftover from the Bagel Bites, you can put some in a little bowl for dipping. I rinsed out the bowl I melted the butter in and used that. When the calzones had about 8 mins left to cook, I stuck the little bowl of pizza sauce in the oven with the calzones to let it get all nice and warm. When it came out, I sprinkled it with a little more Parmesan cheese. Yum. And tasty. And easy!!
And just like with the Bagel Bites, you can use any of your favorite pizza toppings you want. Mushrooms and Hamburger? Chicken and green peppers? Be sure and take a pic and email me if you experiment! :D
It just so happens that this is one of the first recipe scrapbook pages I ever made too. :)
*Note - I’ve experimented with the cooking temperature/times over the years, and have found that the one posted here in my blog works the best. So be sure and use that and not the one on the scrapbook page. :D
That is so funny about the 33% more dough. Have ou tried getting the ball of dough at Publix? They have some very tasty and fresh dough.
Amanda, I love your new recipe section. Your commentaries are so much fun to read, and I really like the pictures! Allen and I actually made calzones this past Friday. We used the Publix pizza dough, like Jamie recommended. It is a really tasty dough! Anyway, just wanted to drop you a note and say that I’m impressed with all of your creativity! :-)
I made these tonight and we loved them! I took a pic, so I’ll send that to you soon. They were delicious! I added some pizza seasoning I buy from the Amish (wonderful stuff!) and it, along with your ingredients, were yummy! Definitely enough for more than the two of us (mine was huge). We’re thinking of adding these to our “regulars” and trying different ingredients next time…maybe some Canadian Bacon, mushrooms, who knows! Thanks so much for adding the recipe section, I love it. It makes me want to add it to my site… :)
If you have a Trader Joes in your area they sell yummy pizza dough that comes in a clear plastic bag and you can find it in the deli section. These calzones look fabulous and I can’t wait to try them. Yummy!!!!
Mine are in the oven now. Looks great!!
I have made this six times since I got the recipe here. They are delicious and my teenage children and their friends absolutely love them. I sometimes add canadian bacon and/or turkey pepperoni to mine and the last time I made them I spread the dough out on the baking pan cut it into four sections and made four calzones instead of one giant one. BIG hit here!!!!
I finally prepared this and am kicking myself for not doing it sooner! I substituted diced ham for sausage and sprinkled garlic on top and it was delicious!
Hey Amanda! We enjoyed these so much last week, I had to prepare them for our weekend guests and they loved them! I can’t wait to try another recipe!
I LOVED this! It was great to have the leftovers for lunch, too!
You may also get a LB of dough from your favorite pizza shop. We get it at ours, & it cost about $2. I make calzone all the time w/ Tyson Buffalo Tenders, Blue Cheese Dressing, Lots of cheese, and then a mixure of hot sauce and butter brushed on the top before baking. Also … Steak (steak-ums type), horseradish sauce, sauteed mushrooms and onions. My motto is if it can be made into a sandwich I try to make it a calzone. With love from a new fan, Trudy
This is awesome and I am making it tomorrow..if I can wait that long! THanks!
ohh amanda!!!! lol, well I made the chicken packets the night before last, took them to the hospital yesterday and they were a huge hit! now today i have in the oven the chicken packets, but used a thing of ranch dressing mix and your homemade bacon bits :) I also have two calzones in my other oven :) my house smells amazing!!
[...] to Amanda from kevinandamanda, we had quick, yummy calzones tonight! This recipe could not be easier. It took maybe 5 minutes prep and 20 min in the oven. You [...]
Hi Amanda! I made these a few days ago…my husband and I really liked them! Thanks for the great recipe. I have used this pizza dough for other recipes, and I laughed when I read yours, because I’m always saying that the 33% more is just a little too much extra dough!
I’ve made these a couple times…my personal favorite is lots of pepperoni with smoked provolone and mozzarella…or the pizza blend (and the smoked provolone too–gotta have it!!) I made it a few weeks ago doing cheese steak..reminded me of a cheesesteak stromboli..I need to pass this recipe on to my mom using that meat ;) (I had the deli carve up the meat for me–it was an italian roast beef). Anywho, these are fab. As far as the extra 33% Ive only been stuck using the can that has the extra 2 or 3 times, so i roll it out on waxpaper first, and then cut it in sections and make 4 medium sized ones instead of 1 big one…works out great. That way I can also make mine my way, my husband likes his with sauteed onions, sausage, hamburger, canadian bacon and what not (it works great if you brown a little extra meat and then stick it in a zippy bag and freeze it–then for this I can just pull it out and tada!) I added a pinch of dried oregano to the grated parm on top, added a nice flavor to an already GREAT flavor! :D
Oh, and Ive made my own dough once…with my breadmaker…you should get one :) LOL (though i dont use mine to bake bread, i find the loaves are too dense and im not digging that at all!!)
These were great! I’m making them again this weekend for our 14 year old Grandson. Thanks for sharing. (I used Whole Foods Mild Italian Turkey sausage.)
I made these the other night and they turned out awesome! I loved how fast it was to make them! I used pepperoni and ground beef since I didn’t have sausage on hand and they turned out delicious. One thing I didn’t do was leave enough room on the edges to pinch together before baking so we had a little bit of leakage but thats ok! They still turned out great! I also made 2 instead of 1 big one. The best part is my picky husband loved them (he’s loved every recipe of yours that I’ve tried in the past few days!)