La Romanella Calzones

For the past three weeks (at the date of writing this), I have not eaten one thing that was prepared in a home kitchen. Being out of town due to my father’s unexpected passing has meant that I’ve only eaten fast food, casual dining restaurants, free continental breakfasts at a hotel, or {gasp} food from a convenience store. Not all of it was bad, but I was REALLY wanting to get cooking in my own kitchen.

Recently, I was invited to cook up something using products from the La Romanella line at Smart & Final. Everything I’ve tried from the La Romanella product line ends up becoming a favorite of mine, so I was happy to accept the challenge. Calzones are a major family favorite in my house, so this was a perfect time to pair calzones with La Romanella. You can see more photos of my complete shopping trip at Smart and Final here .

Calzones are versatile and you can fill them with any ingredients that you’d like. For our family, I usually make two varieties: a meat filled one and one that is full of cheese and vegetables.

The meatball calzone is the most simple to make. I heated La Romanella Italian Style Meatballs (the smaller 1/2 oz size) with La Romanella Pizza Sauce to them (you can also use La Romanella Pasta Sauce if you prefer). For added cheesiness, I also sprinkled in some La Romanella Grated Parmesan Cheese to the meatballs and sauce.

TIP:You may have noticed in my photo above that I bought the large can of pizza sauce – this sauce freezes well, so I used what I needed for my meatball calzones and the rest was poured into freezer bags and I froze it for future homemade pizza meals.

For my ricotta cheese and vegetable calzones, I sauteed sliced mushrooms, sliced onions, and defrosted frozen spinach in a bit of olive oil. When the mushrooms and onions were done, I tossed in some La Romanella Marinated Artichokes.

In another bowl, I made a ricotta mixture. I mixed together La Romanella Ricotta Cheese, a bit of oregano and basil, egg, La Romanella Minced Garlic, and La Romanella Grated Parmesan cheese.

After the fillings for my calzones was ready, it was time to make pizza dough. You can use any pizza dough recipe you prefer, but I generally use a basic pizza dough recipe made in my Cuisinart food processor . I’ve found that two batches of that recipe is enough to make approximately 16 calzones, when you use about 3.5-4 oz. of dough for each one. Your results may vary as it depends on how thin you roll the dough and how large you roll your circle.

I make a ball of dough that is approximately the size of a tangerine and roll it out into a circle as you’ll see in the image below.

For the meatball calzones, I placed about  5-6 meatballs and sauce onto one side of my dough circle. I top it with shredded Mozzarella cheese.

To make the vegetarian calzones, the process is almost exactly the same, but you will fill it with the ricotta cheese and spinach/artichoke mixture.  The ricotta cheese mixture is put down first and then it is topped with the spinach/artichoke mixture. It’s not shown in the photos below, but I also top the vegetable mixture with shredded Mozzarella cheese.

For both types of calzones, after the filling is placed on on the dough circle, you will fold the empty dough side over the fillings. Press the edges of the dough together to give it a light seal, and then rolls the edges of the dough together to give it is a final seal.

Place the calzones on a greased baking sheet. If you wish, you can brush a bit of egg wash (beaten egg mixed with a bit of water) over the tops of the dough, which helps to give it a more glossy appearance. I also give 3 quick pokes to the top of the dough with the tip of a knife to allow the steam to escape.

Bake in an oven at 450 degrees F until browned.

Now that I’ve shared my two favorite calzone recipes with you, I’d love to hear what your favorite ingredients would be to fill them with. What would you add to your own calzones?

Print Print

Disclaimer: This project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for #collectivebias #CBias – All opinions, as always, are 100% my own.