Tomato, pesto and mozzarella calzone

Calzone recipe

This traditional Italian dish is a fun way to get the whole family involved - kids love getting hands-on with the dough and filling and folding their own dinner. Calzone is basically a folded, filled pizza recipe that originated in Naples in the 18th century so people could avoid dropping toppings on themselves when eating pizza while standing in the street - an early version of the now popular ‘street foods’. The name calzone translates roughly to ‘pants leg’ - perhaps because the folded pizza saved your pants leg from being covered in toppings.

It starts off in a similar way to a regular pizza, with a basic dough spread with a tomato-based sauce and sprinkled with your chosen fillings and cheese. Then comes the difference - the calzone is folded over and sealed before baking, keeping the fillings safely inside. The flavours are the same as your favourite pizza but without the ingredients all out on display.

This recipe is so easy to create using a basic two-ingredient dough with a simple filling of store-bought pesto, grated mozzarella cheese and sliced cherry tomatoes that is fantastically fresh and allows the addition of any of your favourite flavours to suit your taste. With all your tasty fillings contained inside the dough, these calzones are perfect for an easy meal - whether you’re picnicking outside, or eating in front of the TV on weekends.

How to make calzone dough

Traditionally calzone is made with a basic pizza dough created from flour, yeast, sugar, olive oil and water. Yeast is used as a raising agent to give the dough a lovely light and airy texture with that slight chewiness that we all know and love. This method is great when you have a bit of extra time to allow the yeast to do its thing.

Some nights you just don’t have the time to make a yeast-based dough and let it rise. So ideal for nights like these, this simple dough recipe only needs two simple ingredients that you will most likely find in your cupboard and fridge at home, and doesn’t need proofing. With just self raising flour and Greek yoghurt you can create an easy pizza dough that’s perfect for beginners and makes a great calzone with a texture that will beat most store-bought pizza bases.

The best calzone fillings

Traditional calzone fillings are as wide ranging as pizza toppings - you can fill your calzone with pretty much anything you want. Your filling may be as simple as this cheese, tomato and pesto combo, or a more punchy mix such as pepperoni, mushrooms, capsicum and onions.

You can’t go wrong with classic pizza combinations like margarita (tomato sauce with mozzarella and basil), supreme (pepperoni, ham, green peppers, mozzarella, onions, olives and mushrooms) and ham and pineapple. Try variations like three cheeses (ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan), or ricotta and spinach - you can fill them with as many or as little flavours as you like. Try a breakfast calzone with eggs, cheese and ham or create a dessert calzone using chocolate, banana and any of your favourite sweet treats. There’s nothing to stop you from digging into a delicious calzone at any time of day.

Now get cooking

Now that you’ve created this simple tomato, pesto and mozzarella calzone, the calzone world is your oyster. If you have a little bit of extra time then you can create your next calzone with our basic homemade pizza dough recipe. Get inspiration for your next calzone filling from our ultimate pizza collection. For more Italian favourites, check out our Italian dinner recipe collection.