Easy Sourdough Calzone Recipe – With Video
This easy sourdough calzone recipe is perfect for when you’re on the go, especially during the warm summer months. Calzones are little pockets of pizza crust that are traditionally filled with your favorite pizza toppings such as sauce, meat and cheese. My family likes to stuff calzones with a variety of fillings including bell peppers, steak and cheese to make philly cheesesteak calzones. See video below.
The sourdough portion of these calzones can be made the night before or even several days ahead of time and placed in the refrigerator to long ferment, which increases the health benefits of the dough. Having the dough made ahead of time also means you can pull it out of the refrigerator, add the filling, and bake these fresh for a quick and easy meal. Sourdough calzones are also excellent when frozen. I suggest making a double, triple or even quadruple batch of the dough and baking up a bunch of these when you have a few extra minutes. This way, your freezer will be well stocked with fast lunches that are easy to take with you when you’re on the go in the summertime, or for back-to-school time in the fall.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- They can be stuffed with lots of different fillings, which is a great way to use up leftover meat or veggies in your refrigerator.
- The dough can be made ahead of time, making it perfect to bake up for a quick meal.
- You can make the dough with or without a mixer.
- Because these are made with a sourdough crust and can be long fermented, they are much healthier than traditional pizza dough.
Ways To Enjoy This Sourdough Calzones Recipe
We produce most all of our own food on our Nebraska homestead, and so we have a pantry that is always stocked with home-canned pizza sauce, frozen hamburger or breakfast sausage and homemade cheese. These sourdough calzones are a great way to package up these homemade ingredients into a fun and delicious meal. We also like to put broccoli from the garden and cheese made from our Jersey milk cows, or home-canned sauerkraut and hamburger into these homemade calzones. They are also really good with fresh mushrooms, spinach and some feta and parmesan cheese, or home-canned chicken, alfredo sauce and spinach from the garden. The sky is the limit! We like to have family pizza nights once a week, and these are a nice variation on traditional pizza. These would also be the perfect recipe for a pizza night to celebrate a birthday.
Favorite Filling Combinations
- Hamburger or sausage, pizza sauce, fresh basil and fresh mozzarella cheese. Can also add pineapple zucchini, olives, mushrooms or onions.
- Steak pieces, onions, bell peppers and provolone cheese for philly cheesesteak calzones.
- Spinach, mushrooms and feta cheese
- Home canned sauerkraut, hamburger and cheese
- Home-canned chicken, alfredo sauce, mushroom and spinach
Ingredients
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Tools
How to Make Sourdough Calzones
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment or a large mixing bowl, combine water, sourdough starter, butter, sugar and salt.
Add in the flour one cup at a time and mix for 5-7 minutes in the mixer. Or do a few stretch and folds over a couple of hours to develop the gluten if not using a mixer. You can pull up on the dough and if it doesn’t break and you can see through it, then the gluten is developed correctly. This is sometimes called the windowpane test.
Place the ball of dough in plastic wrap or in an airtight bowl. Allow to ferment at room temperature overnight, or in the refrigerator for up to a week.
The next morning, or when you’re ready to bake the sourdough calzones, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
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Divide dough into 6 equal pieces. To make smaller calzones, divide the dough into 8 equal pieces
Mix up filling ingredients. If browning the meat fresh and not using leftovers, I like to cook it in a cast iron skillet. Then add my other ingredients right into the same pan.
On a lightly floured surface, roll each dough ball into a circle using a rolling pin.
The next step is to place approximately ½ cup of filling into the center of each dough circle.
Fold the calzone dough to make a half circle and pinch the edges closed.
Brush the dough with melted butter or olive oil.
Place on a sheet of parchment paper and bake on a prepared baking sheet or place on a preheated pizza stone using a pizza peel.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
Enjoy fresh, or allow to cool and place in quart ziplock bags and put in the freezer. Will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months. You can also freeze unbaked calzones, and bake directly from the freezer.
To thaw baked calzones
Place on a cookie sheet in the oven and bake until warmed through.
Microwave for 1-2 minutes until warmed through
If it’s a warm day and we’re out and about, we will sometimes put these on the dash of our vehicle to thaw and warm while we’re working.
I hope you enjoy these sourdough calzones as much as we do. Learning how to eat healthy and nourishing food even during busy seasons is a worthy pursuit, and one we are here to help you with. Thanks for following along as we share more about how to live a simple, sustainable life.
Tips
- If possible, make your dough ahead of time and allow it to long ferment. You can also make your filling ahead of time as well.
- Use leftover meat and veggies from your refrigerator as fillings for these calzones.
- Double or triple the batch of dough so you can make extras for the freezer.
- Roll out the whole batch of dough into a large rectangle. Spread the filling ingredients onto the dough like you would for cinnamon rolls. Roll up and cut like cinnamon rolls. This is an easy way to make sourdough pizza rolls.
FAQ
More Recipes Like This
Easy Sourdough Calzone Recipe – With Video
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter softened
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup sourdough starter preferable active
- 1 1/4 cups warm water
- 4 cups all purpose flour
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment or a large mixing bowl, combine water, sourdough starter, butter, sugar and salt.
- Add in the flour one cup at a time and mix for 5-7 minutes in the mixer, or do a few stretch and folds over a couple of hours to develop the gluten if not using a mixer.
- Place ball of dough in plastic wrap or in an airtight bowl and allow to ferment at room temperature overnight, or in the refrigerator for up to a week.
- The next morning, or when you’re ready to bake the sourdough calzones, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Divide dough into 6 equal pieces. To make smaller calzones, divide the dough into 8 equal pieces.
- Mix up filling ingredients. If browning the meat fresh and not using leftovers, I like to cook it in a cast iron skillet. Then add my other ingredients right into the same pan.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll each dough ball into a circle using a rolling pin.
- Place approximately ½ cup of filling into the center of each dough circle.
- Fold the calzone dough to make a half circle and pinch the edges closed.
- Brush the dough with melted butter or olive oil.
- Place on a sheet of parchment paper and bake on a prepared baking sheet or place on a preheated pizza stone using a pizza peel.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
- Enjoy fresh, or allow to cool and place in quart ziplock bags and put in the freezer. Will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months. You can also freeze unbaked calzones, and bake directly from the freezer.
To thaw baked calzones
- Place on a cookie sheet in the oven and bake until warmed through.
- Microwave for 1-2 minutes until warmed through
- If it’s a warm day and we’re out and about, we will sometimes put these on the dash of our vehicle to thaw and warm while we’re working.
Notes
- If possible, make your dough ahead of time and allow it to long ferment. You can also make your filling ahead of time as well.
- Use leftover meat and veggies from your refrigerator as fillings for these calzones.
- Double or triple the batch of dough so you can make extras for the freezer.
- Roll out the whole batch of dough into a large rectangle and spread the filling ingredients onto the dough like you would for cinnamon rolls. Roll up and cut like cinnamon rolls. This is an easy way to make sourdough pizza rolls.
