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This Italian Calzone is exactly like your favorite pizza shop. This easy calzone is filled with sautéed mushrooms, squash, lots of cheese, flavorful marinara sauce and then baked until puffy and golden brown. This is easy to throw together. Pair it with my Best Caesar Salad and Tiramisu for the most delicious dinner.
They’re heavenly little creations. I’m not sure who invented them but they are glorious! Like gigantic hot pockets filled with cheesy goodness. Make them for your next pizza night!
Calzones aren’t thought to be authentic Italian (I personally think of them as Italian-American) but they are absolutely authentic Italian, along the lines of Cannelloni and Pasta al Limone.
Ingredients You’ll Need for to Make Italian Calzones
- Pizza dough – You can make your own OR you can pick it up from a local Italian restaurant or grocery store.
- Pizza sauce – Pizza sauce is thicker and more cooked down than, say, a marinara sauce for pasta. I love Rao’s Pizza Sauce.
- Fillings – For this recipe I used squash and mushrooms. I wanted to go the veggie route, but feel free to fill it with whatever you like. I included some variation ideas below.
- Cheese – You can’t have a calzone and not add some cheese. I added some mozzarella. But feel free to do a mix.
For the rest of the ingredients, please see the recipe card below!
How to Make an Italian Calzone
- Grab your homemade or store-bought pizza dough. Roll it out into a 9-inch round on a lightly floured surface. I did this using my hands and a rolling pin.
- Preheat oven.
- Fillings! I used sauteed cremini mushrooms, tomato sauce, diced squash, caramelized onions and mozzarella.
- Add it to the pizza dough. You’re only adding the fillings to one side of the pizza dough.
- Flip over the one half of the pizza dough. I did a terrible crimp action so do your best. Brush the top with olive oil.
- Cut a hole in the top. And then transfer it to the oven to bake for about 20 minutes. I lined my baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper. If you like, you can skip it and use cooking spray.
- No need for egg wash. I decided to skip egg wash because this is not a pastry! 🙂
Variations
Ricotta and Spinach. A classic combination is ricotta, wilted spinach and mozzarella cheese.
Buffalo Chicken. Hear me out. This is not traditional. Think of it like a Buffalo Chicken Pizza in calzone form.
Meat Lover’s. This one is inspired by my Meat Lover’s Pizza. Add in cooked Italian sausage and pepperoni, along with ricotta and mozzarella. Yum.
Recipe FAQs
It’s like a gigantic empanada but made with pizza dough and filled with everything from pepperoni, sausages, veggies, cheeses and tomato sauce.
Calzone is a half moon-shaped cheese and sauce filled piece of heaven. It comes from Naples, Italy and is a popular street food, due to the fact that it’s easy to eat while standing and walking. Stromboli comes from beautiful New Jersey! Strombolis are shaped like burritos, while the former is half moon-shaped.
More Cozy Recipes To Make
Dinner
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Desserts
Limoncello Tiramisu
Game Day
Beer Battered Onion Rings
Italian
Fried Calamari
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Italian Calzone Recipe
Equipment
- 1 (half sheet) baking sheet
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced
- Pinch kosher salt
- 1/2 cup butternut squash, cubed
- 1/2 cup broccolini, trimmed
- 1/2 cup cremini mushrooms, sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
- 1 (12-ounce) batch of store-bought or homemade prepared pizza dough
- 3 tablespoons jarred marinara sauce
- 1 (4-ounce) mozzarella ball Or 4 ounces shredded mozzarella
Instructions
To Make the Filling:
- In a medium skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add thinly sliced onions and pinch of salt. Cook onions for 30 minutes, or until onions are browned and caramelized.
- While the onions are cooking, pre-heat oven to 400F. Place cubed butternut squash on a baking sheet and toss with a teaspoon of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 15 minutes, or until soft. Remove and set aside.
- When onions are caramelized, add broccolini and cremini mushrooms and sauteé for 5-10 minutes. Add garlic to the top and cook just until fragrant.
To Bake the Calzone:
- Lightly flour your work surface and roll out pizza dough to a 1/8-inch thick circle. Transfer pizza dough to a piece of parchment. Add the tomato sauce to one half. Top with broccolini/mixture. Add the butternut squash and then finish it off with a few slices of mozzarella.
- Fold dough in half, over filling, and crimp as desired to seal. Transfer parchment with calzone to a baking sheet. Using a knife, slice a hole in the top. This will allow steam to escape as it bakes. Place it in the oven and cook until dough is puffed up and golden brown, 15-20 minutes.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
OMG so delicious, this looks insane
I make pizza every week, but never calzones…they scare me. I don’t even know what my deal is. I need to get over my calzone-fear stat because this looks amazing!
That. Looks. Awesome. Do you deliver? Call me crazy but I do LOVE broccoli rabe! I’ve embraced the bitterness and never looked back! You do need some olive oil or other fat to offset the bitterness or it can be awful. The combination you have here really makes me want to reach through the screen and grab a bite! Great idea and sorry you hated it but it looks great to me! Awesome pics too! Following and looking forward to future posts!
Mellissa
Deliciousness in a pouch. You should call this a marsupial pizza.
MARSUPIAL PIZZA!!!! I love that.
I thought I would make my way out of my regular old veggie box and be culinarily adventureous and tried broccoli rabe a while back and it was an absolute disaster—so disappointing as I thought it would be our new “it” veggie. For some reason my husband kept eating it–but maybe he was just being polite.
Love love love your blog—it inspires me to both cook more and maintain a more presentable manicure
HA! That last part made me laugh, like a lot.
I love calzones…especially with these flavors. Broccoli rabe is delicious!
Looks amaze – as always!
Ugh, me too, have never tasted a broccoli raab that i like, ‘sigh’…anyway, i love the idea of your throwing butternut squash in there (love butternut squash!) and i think your crimping looks expert. plus you had recent practice with those lovely looking pop tarts….ok have a happy wed and can’t wait to try this…xo
I am totally in love with this calzone. Yummmmmo.
First of all your photos are gorgeous…and I’m forcing myself to have leftovers instead of braving the snow storm to buy all of the ingredients for this. I WILL make this over the weekend!! Yum!!