Homemade Calzones with Ground Beef and Pepperoni

These delicious calzones are made from homemade pastry dough and stuffed with browned ground beef, pepperoni, vegetables, and cheese.

Yesterday afternoon Little Finch and I made pastry dough in hopes to use it with something for dinner. After looking around the fridge I decided on making something similar to a calzone. I had several bits of veggies left over from other meals and needed to use them before they went bad. I also had some mini pepperoni slices from a pizza we had made a while ago. The great thing about these is that you can add in whatever you like or have laying around the kitchen (preferably not your children or their fifty million toys though). I made these calzones personal size rather than a whole pie because Lover Boy doesn’t like all of the veggies I like. Also, rather than making your own dough you can buy already made pie crusts that you just roll out and cut to the size you need.

Check out these 25 Ground Beef Dinner Ideas!

Ingredients

• pastry dough – for this recipe I made homemade pastry dough using my Julia Child’s Pastry Dough recipe
• ground beef – I prefer to use 90% fat or less for calzones
• seasonings: black pepper, crushed red pepper, Italian, garlic salt and parsley
• pepperoni
• green bell pepper – if you’re not a fan of bell peppers, feel free to leave them out
• mozzarella cheese – while I used shredded cheese, the most convenient way to fill calzones is with sliced cheese! Yep, sliced cheese – just like some of the deep-dish pizza shops in Chicago do!
• red onions – optional, feel free to leave out
• fresh spinach – optional, feel free to leave out

Let’s Make Calzones Together!

To start off, you will need to make the pastry dough ahead of time. Check out my post for Julia Child’s Pastry Dough

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Step 1: Brown ground beef in a skillet

Step 2: Season ground beef with seasonings

Black pepper, crushed red pepper, Italian, garlic salt and parsley

Step 3: Add diced tomatoes to ground beef mixture

Stir in the tomatoes and then turn off heat and let sit until ready to use

Step 4: Prepare your other calzone filling items

I used green bell peppers, red onion, spinach and mini pepperoni

Step 5: Mix toppings together

In a large bowl, mix together ground beef, pepperoni and vegetables

Step 6: Roll out pastry dough

Make as big or small as you’d like, it doesn’t have to be perfect!

Step 7: Fill pastry dough with meat, vegetables and cheese

I would recommend using mozzarella cheese, however, I only have shredded cheddar cheese

Step 8: Roll pastry dough edges inward and pinch shut

Step 9: Bake

Place on baking sheet and put in oven at 400 degrees. Bake until brown on top, about 20-25 min

Remove form the oven and enjoy!!

As always let me know what you think of this if you give it a try!