We love calzones in our house! Always have, always will. They're easy to eat, and you can fill them with whatever ol' pizza-friendly ingredients you like. You can serve them with marinara as a dipping sauce or you can pour marinara sauce over the calzones after they’re baked.
And you can make them with your favorite homemade pizza crust, which I’m happy to do… OR you can do what I did last night and take this easy, just-as-delicious road.
Here’s what you need: Frozen (unrisen) dinner rolls or bread dough, ricotta cheese, Parmesan, mozzarella, sausage, onion, Italian seasoning (not pictured because I’m a dork), parsley, salt and pepper (not pictured because I’m an airhead), and pepperoni if you’re into that sort of thing.
Remove several rolls from the bag and place them on a baking sheet. Then just cover them with a towel and let them thaw and rise for two or three hours.
When the rolls are close, preheat the oven to 400 degrees, then dice up an onion.
Throw in the sausage and cook it with the onions…
Until the sausage is brown.
Then throw in the Italian seasoning…
And the red pepper flakes. Then just remove the sausage from the skillet and set it aside to cool.
Now, throw the ricotta into a bowl.
Then add some Parmesan cheese.
Grate up some mozzarella…
Then add it to the bowl.
Then have your thirteen-year-old nephew Stu crack in a couple of eggs for you.
Note: If you do not have a thirteen-year-old nephew named Stu, you may have a hard time executing this important step.
Add in some salt…
And some pepper.
The rolls are risen!
Grab one of the rolls…
And roll it as thinly as you can. You’ll have to press pretty hard and work it over a few times, but just keep at it.
Spoon on some topping…
Lay on some pepperoni…
Then fold the other edge over…
And place it on a baking sheet. (A baking mat, parchment, or cooking spray is wise. As you can see, I was not wise in this photo.)
Here’s the sausage version.
The bread dough is awesomely stretchy, so it allows you to pull a bit when and if you need to!
To seal the edges, press them with a fork…
Then beat an egg…
And generously brush the surface of the calzones.
Oh! And I forgot the parsley earlier.
It goes into the cheese mixture.
If you just want one variety of calzone, here’s the way I usually do it: Just throw the cooled sausage right into the cheese mixture and stir it around.
If you want more generously-sized calzones, grab the thawed bread loaf and tear off 1/4 to 1/3 of the loaf.
Form a circle of the dough…
(See that wound on my finger? Airsoft.)
And roll it out. Because you have a little more dough to work with, you don’t have to get it quite as thin as you did the bread rolls.
Lay a good portion of the sausage on the dough, then lay pepperoni slices on top.
Fold it over…
And brush on the beaten egg.
Now it’s time to bake ’em! 400 degrees for 8-12 minutes, until they’re nice and golden brown.
Like dees! These are the babies.
And dees! This is the monster-sized one.
This is definitely a portion size Marlboro Man can wrap his appetite around, but the smaller calzones make more sense for kids or anyone who might be frightened by a calzone this monstrous.
I serve my calzone with marinara sauce for dipping. It’s more of a fun experience that way and everyone can control the amount of sauce he prefers. But you can also smother the calzone with marinara if you like things messy.
Enjoy, everyone!
