A Chicken Parmesan Calzone Recipe

A lack of time should never be a reason to settle for fast food or ready-made meals. All too often do I hear the words of "just no time to cook" and "frozen's faster". Well, let's see those excuses hold up to this chicken parmesan calzone recipe! This easy calzone recipe is 100% from scratch, and granted you have some leftover chicken, will only take the lesser part of 35 minutes to prepare. That's fresh yeast bread filled with chicken, vegetables and two gooey cheeses, all baked to perfection in just over a half hour! Seriously, it'd take you more time to put your shoes on and go through a drive thru. It's time to treat yourself to a homemade delight with my easy chicken parm calzone recipe.

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Calzone Dough -

• 1 & 2/3 Cup Flour
• 2/3 Cup Warm Water
• 1 Tablespoon Sugar
• 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
• 1 Pkg. Active Dry Yeast

Filling -

• 1 Cup Shredded Chicken (I used leftover leg meat)
• 6 Button Mushrooms
• 1 Packed Cup Spinach Leaves
• 1/2 Cup Mozzarella Cheese
• 1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese
• Salt & Pepper

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1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Begin making the dough. Add the sugar to the warm water and dissolve. Next add your package of yeast and set aside.
3. Sift flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the vegetable oil and combine well with a fork.
4. Once bubbles have formed on top of the yeast and sugar water, pour it into the flour. Stir well. The dough will be on the moist side.
5. Flour a surface and hand knead the dough for 2-3 minutes. At this point, the dough should be elastic and have a shiny appearance.
6. Place in a bowl and cover with a towel. Place near the oven. The heat will allow for the dough to rise rapidly.
7. While you're waiting for the next 15 minutes for the dough to rise, prepare the filling. Grate your cheeses, shred any large pieces of leftover chicken and wash the spinach.
8. For the mushrooms, heat a skillet to medium high heat with no oil or liquid. Slice the mushrooms and add to the hot pan. Saute for 3-4 minutes, or until they just start to get a golden color. This process will eliminate most of the water content locked up in the mushrooms, freeing you from a soggy calzone.
9. After about 15 minutes, the dough should should be pretty close to double it's original size. Remove it from the bowl and give it a quick 20 second knead on a floured surface, then cut into two equal portions.
10. Roll each portion of dough out to a thickness of 1/4 inch. Stuff with equal amounts of filling and seal up your calzones.
11. Bake for 11-13 minutes, depending on how golden you want the crust to be! Wait 3-4 minutes before cutting into.

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There you go! Making this chicken parmesan calzone recipe is probably one of the best ways to spend a half hour. Thank you for reading my easy calzone recipe. Please enjoy!

Joe Macho@ Hubpages