Julie Clark
Posted:
Homemade Pepperoni Calzones That Beat Any Takeout Pizza
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These homemade pepperoni calzones have a golden crust, melted cheese, and classic pizza flavor—just like your favorite pizzeria. They are easy to customize and perfect for Friday night dinner.
Skip delivery and make this cheesy pepperoni calzone recipe at home. With our tips for the perfect pizza dough, an extra hot oven and assembly tips, these calzones give you everything you love about pizza, but folded into a handheld meal.
My love for pepperoni calzones, to you.
Fridays were always pizza dats when I was growing up—whether it was from the school cafeteria or homemade in our kitchen.
Sometimes we make traditional pizza, but other times we make pizza dip, pizza potatoes or pizza twice baked potatoes. These pepperoni calzones are another fun twist on that pizza night tradition.
They pack all the best parts of pizza, gooey cheese, crispy pepperoni, golden crust, into a cozy, sealed pizza pocket. My kids love loading theirs with extra cheese—and yes, we always sprinkle a little more on top so it gets beautifully browned.
This recipe brings back those fun evenings at the family table, and I hope it does the same for you. Serve with a side of our pizza sauce recipe for dipping, pizza pinwheels and mozzarella tomato salad.
Enjoy! -Julie
Homemade Dough vs Store-bought Dough
If you haven’t made our pizza dough yet, you have to try it. It bakes up the most deliciously flavored, crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside crust ever. Yes, it has yeast in it so it takes a bit of advance planning, but it’s only about an hour total from mixing to rising. It’s worth it!
Everyone needs a shortcut at times though. If you don’t have time to make homemade dough for pizza calzones, buy frozen bread dough and use it as the pizza crust. It’s very good, too!
Pepperoni Calzones
A hot oven and the right dough are our secrets to making pizzeria-perfect pepperoni calzones. Stuff your calzone with all of your favorite pizza toppings!
Servings 6
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 8 minutes
Rise Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 3 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cups warm water 115ºF
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons cornmeal
- 3 cups bread flour or all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 4 ounces sliced pepperoni
- 3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- olive oil for topping
- 1 teaspoon garlic salt
Instructions
- Put warm water, sugar and yeast together in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let it sit for 5 minutes or until the yeast has activated. 1 ⅓ cups warm water, 2 teaspoons granulated sugar, 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- Add in the olive oil, cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, garlic powder, and onion powder. With the paddle attachment, mix just until combined. Then put on the dough hook and knead for about 7-8 minutes on low speed. The dough should be slightly tacky to the touch, not dry. Cover with plastic wrap or a towel and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes or until nearly doubled. 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons cornmeal, 3 cups bread flour, 1 ¼ teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon garlic powder, ¼ teaspoon onion powder
- Preheat the oven to 550ºF. Divide the pizza dough into 6 balls. Press each ball out into a circle. Place 5 pepperoni slices on half of the circle. Then put about ⅓ to ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese over the pepperoni. Place another 5 pepperoni slices on top of the cheese. Fold the circle in half. Turn the edges in and press to seal the calzone. 4 ounces sliced pepperoni, 3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- Brush the top of each calzone with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic salt. Put a bit of shredded mozzarella on top, if desired. Place the calzones on a baking sheet. olive oil, 1 teaspoon garlic salt
- Bake for 8 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with side of pizza sauce or marinara sauce.
Notes
- If you’d like, you can use your breadmaker on the dough setting to make this dough.
- To get the size that we have, divide 1 recipe of our pizza dough into 6 balls. The dough will be a little sticky, but that’s OK. Be careful not to add a lot of flour for handling the dough. You want that dough to be sticky so your calzone seals when you pinch it together.
- If your oven doesn’t go up to 550 degrees, set it to as high as it will go. You may need to add a few minutes to the baking time.
- Store any leftover calzones in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Reheat in the air fryer to crisp it back up.
- Refer to the article above for more tips and tricks. The calories shown are based on the recipe making 6 calzones, with 1 serving being 1 whole calzone. Since different brands of ingredients have different nutritional information, the calories shown are just an estimate. **We are not dietitians and recommend you seek a nutritionist for exact nutritional information. **
Nutrition
Calories: 562kcal | Carbohydrates: 53g | Protein: 26g | Fat: 27g | Saturated Fat: 12g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 11g | Trans Fat: 0.3g | Cholesterol: 63mg | Sodium: 1526mg | Potassium: 276mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 380IU | Vitamin C: 0.03mg | Calcium: 327mg | Iron: 1mg
How to Shape Pepperoni Calzones: Step by Step
Making these pizza calzones is pretty simple, there are just a few key steps that you can’t afford to miss for the perfect calzone.
- Roll each dough ball out and put pepperoni and cheese on half of the semi-circle, depending on how much you want. Don’t be afraid to put a good amount of cheese on. You can also throw in peppers, onions, mushrooms…whatever makes you happy that day!
- When you go to fold up your calzone, pinch the sides really good so that nothing can escape when you bake it. Pinch, fold and pinch again to make sure that no cheese seeps out. But no worries, even if your calzone does let go of some cheese it’ll still taste good with that crispy cheese baked on the bottom.
- Lastly, brush the tops of your calzones with a little splash of olive oil. Then sprinkle some garlic salt and mozzarella cheese (or Parmesan cheese) on top. You can never have too much cheese.
- The key thing about making this calzone is to heat up the oven really, really hot. It will bake better and faster, too, giving you that nice crispy, yet chewy crust. Our oven’s hottest temperature is 550ºF, so that’s what we cook our calzones at. It will only take about eight minutes to bake. Watch carefully so they don’t burn!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I make these pizza calzones smaller?
Sure! Shape them smaller and reduce the baking time by 2 minutes.
Can I add other meats and cheeses?
Yes. Ricotta cheese is a popular addition. I often combine ricotta and mozzarella. Use cooked ground beef or pork sausage.
Calzones came out very puffy, very interesting. I’ve never added baking powder to a yeast bead before. After baking all, I froze half and reheated later at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. They came out fine! I might add note filling if I made these again- bread to filling ratio was a bit off.
Made these last night. They are delicious! Will definitely be making these again and again. My only suggestion would be to change the prep/total time listed for them. I read that and thought I could have them made in 33 minutes. Not possible. 5 minutes for yeast to stand, 10 minutes kneading with dough hook, 30 minutes to rise, plus a little time for mixing ingredients and pressing them out and putting them together. That’s 45 minutes plus. And then bake 8 minutes. So probably took more like an hour to make them.
I usually never comment on recipes I replicate but.. These were simply delicious!!! I stuffed them with pepperoni (a little more then the recipe called for ????) green and red peppers, strips of chicken and plenty of mozzarella! It was tasty! I have no bread machine so I kneaded the dough myself, but it turned out absolutely amazing! Great recipe! Will definitely recommend and make again! Thank you so much!
These look great. I’m a vegetarian so I will put maybe olives and mushrooms instead of pepperoni. Thanks
I found the dough extremely sticky (which it was supposed to be..) Do you have some suggestions for getting this wet sticky dough cut into pieces and flattened without adding more flour? I watched one video on working with sticky dough, but they were using some flour, and then there was one where they used oil sprayed on the counter and hands… Which do you use?
Thank you for putting up a calzone recipe! The spices were just perfect and we really enjoyed it. There’re were a couple of things that might need to be looked at. With three cups of flour, the dough was like soup. I probably ended up adding at least two more cups. Not a big deal, but adding the sauce to the calzone was omitted from the instruction. I know, duh! but you never know! Thank yu for the recipe and your pictures are beautiful!
School calzones were the best! I ate two a day sometimes. Yikes! I’ve tried to find those frozen turnovers in the store but haven’t had success. There’s probably a reason for that. 🙂
We do make your own pizza a lot, but haven’t tried calzones yet. These look so yummy, so we obviously have been missing out 🙂 Pinned!
YUM! These look great! It’s hard to turn down a homemade calzone 🙂
These are definitely the best homemade calzones I’ve ever seen – the dough looks incredible! Pinning and think I’ll make these instead of pizza for dinner on Friday night 🙂
These look awesome! I’ve never made homemade calzones…..saving this recipe to try!!
I know my husband would love these! They are the perfect snack size!!
My husband is a huge fan of homemade calzones – maybe I should make them for him the week he’s off on vacation! Thanks for sharing!
these look so crazy good, my boys would go crazy for them!