This easy homemade calzone pizza recipe uses few ingredients. Calzone is a folded version of pizza or pizza pocket, and you can fill it with your favorite pizza toppings. I made this calzone pizza from this homemade pizza dough copycat recipe. This dough makes the best calzone recipe.

This pizza dough used only 6 basic ingredients and two additional optional ingredients. The pizza dough is very easy to make and can be made ahead of time. Calzone pizza makes a good meal, is great for school lunch boxes, and makes a fun lunch or dinner.
What is Calzone?
Calzone is an Italian dish that originated in Naples, Italy, and it has become one of the street foods found in Italy. Calzone is like pizza turnover made with a pizza dough topped with sauce, Italian deli meat, cheese, and baked. They are sometimes served with a sauce for dipping.
Calzones are made like making meat turnovers or hand pies. All the fillings are placed on half of the rolled pizza dough, and the other half is then folded over, sealed, egg washed, and baked.
More about this Calzone Pizza
• calzone uses a soft pizza dough with Italian cold meat and deli ham for the perfect flavor combination. This recipe can be customized with different fillings, and you can turn any pizza recipe into a calzone recipe
• The recipe is easy to make, and with detailed instructions and a video tutorial, you can make the pizza in no time.
Calzone Ingredients
When making calzone, you need two main ingredients that are pizza dough and filling. As I said earlier, you can turn most pizza recipes into a calzone. Therefore, the options are endless: the pizza dough or the meat or cheese used.
Pizza dough:
I used Homemade domino’s pizza dough for this easy calzone, but store-bought pizza dough will work fine. If you have a favorite pizza dough recipe, that will work too. The pizza dough recipe makes 2 pounds of dough; you can choose to make eight rolls of calzone and freeze some for later use.
Calzone Filling
1. Base: pizza sauce or was used spread onto the pizza dough. Another option is to use melted butter and herbs or seasoning. Tomato sauce will work for filling too.
2. Meat: use ½ pounds of thinly sliced meat such as deli ham, salami, pepperoni, turkey, beef, chicken, prosciutto, Italian sausage, and other pizza meat.
3. Cheese: use ½ pound of thinly sliced cheese or shredded cheese for each stromboli roll. You use slices of provolone or mozzarella cheese.
4. vegetables: you can add vegetables to the filling as well. When adding vegetables, make sure to cook them and blot excess moisture. Mushrooms, bell peppers, spinach, red onions, olives, and many more.
Toppings
Toppings are optional, but they add some additional layer of flavor to the calzone. You can use egg wash and herbs or melted butter with some sea salt or spices.
Watch How to Make easy pizza calzones recipe
How to Make Calzones at home
Make the dough according to this recipe, or use any pizza dough. On a lightly floured surface, divide pizza dough into four, then stretch and roll each pizza dough a circle into ¼ inch thick.
Spread the surface with pizza sauce ricotta cheese, layer the meat and cheeses evenly over the pizza dough, leaving a 1-inch border around the edges. Brush the edges with the egg wash mixed with Italian seasoning.
Fold over and tightly crimps the edges to seal.
Transfer the calzone to the prepared baking sheet. Brush the top of the calzone with the remaining egg wash and cheese. Cut a slit on top of the roll for steam to escape.
Bake in a preheated oven until golden brown, then cool down for about 10 minutes. Serve them warm with marinara dipping sauce or alone. Enjoy them.
Make-Ahead Instruction
The calzone can be prepared, covered with plastic wrap, and refrigerated for 12 hours before baking. Add the egg wash and cut slits right before baking and allow a few extra minutes in the oven until golden brown.
How to Freeze the Unbaked Calzone
To freeze the calzone before baking, fill and fold the calzone as directed but do not add the egg wash or cut slits. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and aluminum foil and freeze for 3 months—thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Add the egg wash and cut slits right before baking and allow a few extra minutes in the oven.
How to freeze and Reheat Baked calzone
Allow the baked calzone pizza to cool completely, and then cover with plastic wrap. Keep the calzone in a freezer bag and store them in the freezer for up to 3 months. To use thaw the wrapped calzone at room temperature for 1 hour. Then unwrap and bake in a 350 oF preheated oven for about 15 – 20 minutes or until heated through.
You can also warm the calzone in the microwave for about 2 minutes or until well heated.
What’s the Difference Between a Calzone and a Stromboli?
Calzones and Stromboli are both types of rolled pizza, but they are not the same thing. Even though they both use pizza dough and use almost the same ingredients. The difference between the two is their origin, shape, and the filling used in them.
The calzone was invented in Naples, Italy, while Stromboli was originated in Philadelphia, USA. This is the first distinction between the two. The next difference is how these pizzas are shaped; calzones are folded and sealed like hand pies or empanadas. While Stromboli is rolled like a cinnamon roll and baked as one long log before slicing.
Both start with a rolled pizza dough topped with a similar filling, but calzone usually includes ricotta, a wet cheese. I hope this gives you a clear distinction between the two pizza variants.
Substitutions
• Gluten-free calzone: use gluten-free flour to make the pizza dough and follow the recipe as written.
• Meatball calzone: cook meatballs in tomato sauce or marinara sauce and fill them. Reduce the amount of sauce since you don’t want wet Stromboli. Add your favorite cheese and seal and bake.
• For egg-free calzone, omit the egg wash and use melted butter to brush the top of the dough before baking.
• These calzones can be baked in an air fryer or deep-fried. Another option is to use store-bought puff pastry for a quick puff pastry calzone.
Other recipes
Vanilla Cakelete Recipe (vanilla cake)
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Thanks for reading. As always, know that God loves you, and stay blessed!
Happy baking
Linda
Homemade Calzone Pizza Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- Dough
- 1 ⅓ cup warm water
- 2¼ teaspoons instant yeast
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon milk powder (optional)
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
- Filling
- ½ cup pizza sauce (add more if needed)
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- ½ pounds thinly sliced meats (Italian cold cuts like salami, deli ham, or large pepperoni slices)
- ½ pound shredded cheese (mozzarella and parmesan)
- Egg wash
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Instructions
- To start, combine the flour, yeast, salt, sugar. Garlic powder, dry milk in a bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl. Mix everything, and then add the water and oil to the dry ingredients. Stir until the dough comes together into a shaggy mass. Transfer the bowl to the mixer and attach the dough hook and knead on medium-low speed until smooth and elastic. Another way to tell if the dough is ready is when the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If the dough is sticky and sticks to the sides of the bowl, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough leaves the side of the bowl. This will take about 5- 7 minutes. You can Knead the dough by hand, and it will take about 7 – 10 minutes.
- Transfer the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Allow the dough to rise in a warm place for about 1- 2 hours or until it doubled in size. You can leave the dough to rise in the refrigerator overnight. After the dough has risen, punch it down and divide the dough into 2 and roll each dough into a ball. If you are not ready to use the pizza dough, coat the pizza dough with olive oil and place it in the freezer bag. Refrigerate for up to 2 days.
- Preheat oven to 425 °F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Set aside
- On a lightly floured board, divide each ball of dough into 4 equal sizes and roll each piece into 1/ thick circle. Spread half of the circle with pizza sauce, followed by the ricotta cheese, layer the meat and the rest of the shredded cheese evenly over the pizza leaving a 1-inch border around the edges. Brush the edges with the egg wash mixed with Italian seasoning. Fold over and tightly crimps the edges to seal.
- Transfer the calzone to the prepared baking sheet. Brush the top of the calzone with the remaining egg wash and cheese. Cut a slit on top of the roll for steam to escape.
- Bake in a preheated oven for about 12-15 minutes until golden brown, then allow to cool down for about 10 minutes. Serve them warm with marinara sauce, dipping sauce, or plain.
- Cover and store leftover calzone in the refrigerator for up to 7 days
Notes
The Calzone can be prepared, covered with plastic wrap, and refrigerated for up to 12 hours before baking. Add the egg wash and cut slits right before baking and allow a few extra minutes in the oven until golden brown.
How to Freeze the Unbaked Calzone
To freeze the Calzone before baking, fill and roll the stromboli as directed but do not add the egg wash or cut slits. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and aluminum foil and freeze for up to 3 months. When ready to use, thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Add the egg wash and cut slits right before baking and allow a few extra minutes in the oven.
How to freeze and Reheat Baked Calzone
Allow the baked calzone pizza to cool completely and cover with plastic wrap. Store them in a freezer bag and store them in the freezer for up to 3 months. To use thaw the wrapped Calzone at room temperature for 1 hour. Then unwrap and bake in a 350 F preheated oven for about 10 – 12 minutes or until heated through.
You can also warm the Calzone in the microwave for about 2 minutes until heated through. The baking time stated is for mini calzones; if you make large calzones, then adjust the baking time.
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