Delicious Pizza Calzones

These delicious calzones will simply tantalize your taste buds! Homemade pizza dough stuffed with pizza sauce, mozzarella, and all of your favorite pizza toppings. The garlic butter slathered over top is really what brings these to next level deliciousness! Try these for an easy dinner idea that your whole family will love!

The dough doesn't require a lot of time to rise, it typically doubles up in like 20 to 30 minutes. You can of course use premade pizza dough, frozen or storebought if you want to save time or just don't feel like making the dough but I just think homemade is so much better! And it really doesn't take that much time! Try it, you'll love it!:)

You can stuff these with any of your favorite toppings, get creative if you want there is really no wrong way to make these calzones. Think of your favorite pizza and then just stuff these with all those delicious toppings. For these I just did sausage, pepperoni, and banana peppers and they were so yummy!

What you will need:

For the dough-

Luke-warm water- should be about 110° F to activate the yeast

Active dry yeast- this is what makes the dough rise

Granulated sugar- helps to activate the yeast

Salt- I like to use sea salt

Oil- any neutral oil will work- I use avocado oil

Flour- I like to use bread flour as I feel like it makes the dough more stretchy and easier to shape, but you can totally use AP flour too

We're going to start off by making the dough because it needs a little time to rise. In the bowl of your stand mixer add in the lukewarm water, (make sure its not too hot, if it's too hot the yeast wont activate) yeast, and sugar, stir and let it bloom for 7 to 10 minutes. If the yeast is active it will bubble up and get foamy this is what you want see picture.

Next, add in the oil, salt, and 1 cup of flour, stir until well-incorporated then attach the dough hook. Add in the rest of the flour and knead on low for about 10 minutes, dough should be soft to the touch and pulling away from the sides. Form the dough into a ball and transfer to a well-oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Set this into a warm place to rise until doubled in size about 20 to 30 minutes.

For the garlic butter:

Butter- softened

Oil- any neutral oil is fine

Fresh Italian parsley- finely chopped

Shredded parmesan- grated parmesan is fine too

Minced garlic-

Salt-

Mix all of the ingredients together and set aside while you assemble the calzones.

Assemble and bake:

Once your dough has doubled in size, preheat the oven to 425° F. Drizzle some oil on your workspace, divide the dough into 3 or 4 pieces if you want large calzones or about 6 for smaller ones. Roll the dough into balls and stretch into a circle about 1/4 inch thick.

Add some pizza sauce keeping it within 1 inch from the edge. Add some freshly shredded mozzarella, and your choice of pizza toppings onto half of the dough. Flip the other half over and pinch the edges to seal. Roll the edges of the dough over to reveal a scalloped edge. Sprinkle some cornmeal onto your pizza stone or grease a pizza pan well and add the calzones. Slather that garlic butter on top and into the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown, cooking times will vary with the size of your calzones.