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Beef Calzone is the perfect meal on the go and is filled with a delicious meat and cheese mixture. The perfect grab and go meal.
What is a calzone?
A calzone is like a pizza pocket or turnover. In Italian it actually means “stocking” or “trouser”. Not really sure how it resembles a stocking or trouser but oh well!
The great thing about these beef calzone is they can be eaten out of hand or with a knife and fork. They freeze well so they are perfect for a quick snack or lunch for someone.
Ingredients Needed
Pizza Crust.
You can also use store bought pizza crust.
- Dry active yeast
- Flour. I use unbleached all purpose flour
- Salt
- Olive oil
Beef Calzone Filling:
- Ground Breakfast Sausage. I like to use mild but you can also use hot.
- Ground beef. You can use all hamburger if you prefer. You can also use any leftover meat you may have in the fridge. Shredded chicken or shredded beef both work great.
- Onion. White or yellow onion
- Canned tomatoes and chilies. I use the Rotel brand
- Whole milk ricotta cheese
- Mozzarella cheese. You can also substitute with your favorite cheese.
- Monterey Jack cheese
- Egg
- Salt and black pepper
How to Make Beef Calzone
- Mix up one batch of pizza crust dough and let it rise according to the directions below, about one hour.
- In a large nonstick skillet combine the sausage and hambugrer with the onion. Cook until browned and then drain off grease
- Pour in the tomatoes and chilies and stir to combine Cook for 2 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly
- In a bowl combine the three cheeses and the egg, dash of salt and pepper
- Add the cooled meat mixture to the cheese mixture and stir to gently combine
- Divide the dough into eight pieces and roll each piece out into a circle.
- Spoon beef and cheese mixture onto half of the dough. You can really pile it up! Use approximately 1/8 of the mixture per calzone.
- Fold the other half of the dough over the top of the meat mixture so that your edges line up.
- Roll the edges together or use a fork to press into the edges of dough to close the calzone. Roll the dough edges.
- Give the beef calzone a light coat of olive oil and a sprinkle of coarse salt for extra flavor before baking.
- Heat oven to 450 degrees F and place the calzones on a baking sheet. Bake for about 12 minutes or until golden brown.
Calzone Filling Ideas
- Shredded Chicken
- Beef Barbacoa
- Pork Carnitas
- Pepperoni
- Vegetables
- Whatever you have leftover in your refrigerator.
Frequently Asked Questions
They freeze wonderfully. The recipe made more than our reduced size family could eat so after baking and cooling I wrapped them individually in plastic wrap and foil and tossed them in the freezer.
Rapid rise yeast will work fine, just delete the step where you proof the yeast in the water and just add all the ingredients in together.
Oven: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Place calzone on a baking sheet.
Bake in oven for 15 – 20 minutes or until heated through. If the calzone is frozen it will take around 25-30 minutes to heat through.
Microwave: Place the calzone on a plate and microwave for 1-2 minutes or until heated through.
Some other easy dinner ideas you might enjoy:
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Beef Calzone
Ingredients
Pizza Crust
- 1 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 1/2 cups warm water
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil plus more for drizzling
Cowboy Calzone
- 1/2 lb. hot breakfast sausage I used mild
- 1 lb. ground beef
- 1/2 onion finely diced
- 8 oz. can tomatoes and chilies Rotel brand
- 8 oz. whole milk ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
- 1 egg beaten
- salt and black pepper
Instructions
Pizza Crust
- Yield: 2 pizza crusts
- In a mixing bowl, pour the yeast over 1 1/2 cups of warm water, stirring gently
- the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour and salt Add in olive oil and mix to incorporate.
- Add the yeast mixture to the flour mixture, mixing until the dough forms a ball. (You can also do this by hand.)
- Drizzle a little olive oil into a clean bowl. Add dough to bowl, cover and let rise for 1-2 hours. It can also rise, covered in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
- If you only need half of the dough, he other half of the dough may be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerated up to 3 days before use, or frozen for up to 6 months
Beef Calzone
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees
- In a large skillet combine the sausage and hambugrer with the onion. Cook until browned and then drain off grease
- Pour in the tomatoes and chilies and stir to combine Cook for 2 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly
- In a bowl combine the three cheeses and the egg, dash of salt and pepper
- Add the cooled meat mixture to the cheese mixture and stir to gently combine
- Divide the pizza dough into 8 equal size balls
- With a rolling pin on a floured surface, roll each ball into a 6 inch circle
- Place one eighth of the meat/cheese mixture in the middle of each circle
- Fold half of the circle over the other half, gently pressing to slightly spread and flatten the filling inside
- Press a fork along the edge to seal closed then transfer the calzone to a greased baking sheet Repeat with the remaining dough and filling
- Brush the top of calzone with olive oil and bake for 12-14 minutes until golden brown.
Tips & Notes:
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Nutrition Facts:
Amedy says
Cowboy Calzone looks so delicious I love it
Catherine says
Leigh Anne,
These look delicious! This is definitely somthing that my picky bunch would eat – although not the ricotta cheese, but I could work around that!!
I am really glad you are making recipes from Ree’s cookbook. I haven’t bought it yet, and I was really trying to decide if I should, or if all the recipes were already on her website. I already have more cookbooks than I do shelf space, so I really need to pare it down. I was thinking of just printing out recipes and putting them in the binder that I keep your recipes in . . .however, it seems that there are recipes in the book that aren’t on her site – so maybe I will be purging my cookbook collection while I am snowed (and iced) in this weekend!