I tore this recipe out of a magazine last month because it looked so easy and so good. I made it recently when a couple of friends stopped by for dinner. I threw this together as a quick weeknight meal and it was really delicious. How can you go wrong with sausage, spinach and cheese? The nice thing is that you only have to make the filling. You then wrap it in pizza dough that you buy pre-made. At first I thought it was cheating, as I like to make everything myself, but for a quick weeknight meal I think a little cheating is fine. In addition, I’m just starting to successfully work with yeast, so until I really get the hang of it, it’s store-bought pizza dough for me!
You can play with the ingredients a bit when you make this recipe. It’s very forgiving. I threw in some extra sausage because I had it and some extra cheese because when I grated the fresh mozzarella, there was a little left over, so I just threw it all in. The calzone was very stuffed, but it was delicious. The picture above is the end of the calzone. The middle pieces had much more stuffing in them, but it tasted so good hot out of the oven that we ate most of it before we remembered to photograph it. After my husband snapped the picture above, we inhaled the last two pieces.
Go Green Giant Calzone
From Everyday by Rachel Ray2 pounds baby spinach
8 ounces sweet Italian sausage, casings discarded
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
12 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
1 pound store-bought pizza dough
1 1/2 cups store-bought marinara sauceIn a large skillet, bring 1/4 cup water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add half of the spinach and cook, turning, until wilted, 1 to 2 minutes; drain. Repeat with the remaining spinach. Let cool slightly, then squeeze to remove as much moisture as possible. Coarsely chop, then transfer to a large bowl.
In the same skillet, cook the sausage over medium-high heat, breaking it up, until browned, about 5 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and the onion and cook, scraping up any browned bits, until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer to the spinach mixture. Stir in the mozzarella and Parmesan; season with salt and pepper.
Preheat the oven to 425°. Grease a baking sheet with 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil. On the baking sheet, stretch out the dough to form a 10-by-15-inch rectangle. Mound the filling lengthwise down the center of the dough, leaving a 1-inch border on the short edges. Fold the 1-inch edges toward the center, then fold each long side over the filling. Flip the calzone seam side down and re-tuck any open ends. Rub the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil over the calzone, then cut 2 small vents in the top. Bake until golden, 30 to 35 minutes. Serve with the marinara sauce.
Yield: 6 servings (or 4 if you’re very hungry)
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Did you get the dough at a supermarket or from a pizzeria?
I really cheated and bought the dough at the supermarket!
Diane
I have a really easy pizza dough recipe!
I’d love to try it, but just remember that yeast isn’t really my friend yet.
Here is the link – http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/pizza-dough-recipe/index.html
I made this for a casual Friday night dinner and served it with a green salad. It was so easy and sooooooooo good. Stephanie and Matt finished the leftovers and gave it rave reviews. Will definitely make it again.
Hi Carole,
I’m so glad you liked it! I’ve made it a number of times for a weeknight meal because we really like it as well.
Diane
This made a tasty weekend lunch. We ended up substituting the bbq sauce from the jerk shrimp recipe for the marinara sauce.
I accidentally doubled the sausage for this, and we were already sick of meat when we ate this so it wasn’t my favorite this time. I will give it another try and probably use pepperoni or something (I don’t really like sausage anyway)and only use 8 oz. My other issue was that my dough wasn’t crispy at all. Was yours? It looks like it was. Maybe the amount of filling and sausage I had soaked my dough too much because it was pretty hard to tell where the filling ended and the crust began. Any suggestions?
My dough does get crispy. I think your guess is a good one – perhaps there was much filling? I bet this would be great with pepperoni. Please let me know if you decide to try it again.
-Diane