Ham and ricotta puff pastry calzones are my newest obsession and so absolutely delicious. These are fashioned after traditional Italian ham and ricotta calzones that are made with pizza dough.
If you have ever eaten calzones then you know they can be really delicious but also really heavy and filling. Calzones come in different variations with different ingredients.
Basically anything that you could imagine being on top of a pizza pie can be made into a calzone. It is essentially an inside out pizza.
My favorite calzone has always been ham and ricotta. Ironically, I would never eat a ham and ricotta pizza but something about it in a calzone is amazing.
The ingredients in these puff pastry calzones are very simple. You only need a handful of items and a little patience in assembling them.
You do not to be very good at making pastry shapes or working with dough to make these calzones. The puff pastry is much more forgiving than pizza crust and the end result will look amazing no matter how mangled your assembly of these calzones appear.
The steps to make these ham and ricotta puff pastry calzones are very simple. You will want to make sure to keep you puff pastry in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it and work with one sheet of the puff pastry at a time.
This helps ensure the puff pastry does not get too soft on you. If it does get too soft, it happens but it just make picking them up and handling them a little more difficult. You can just place it back in your refrigerator for a bit to firm up.
Here are the steps to making these delicious calzones:
As you can see from my pre baking picture above of the puff pastry calzones is you do not need to be perfect with the assembling. The beauty of using puff pastry in place of pizza dough is once the puff pastry begins cooking, it puffs up and hides all those imperfections.
I really like that about this recipe. It makes it easy and stress free!
The puff pastry also has much more delicious flavor than pizza dough and it is not as heavy feeling after you eat it.
These calzones can be made ahead of time and frozen in the pre-bake stage. Just take them out of the freezer and place them on a sheet pan to bake for when you need a quick meal.
These calzones with a simple salad like my Italian spinach salad would make a great easy weeknight meal.
Ham and Ricotta Puff Pastry Calzones
Ingredients
- 16 oz whole milk ricotta
- 1 package of puff pastry
- 1 ham steak cubed finely. About 2 cups worth. You can use what ever ham you have on hand as well.
- 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 large eggs One for the calzone filling and one for the egg wash.
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper
- Place your ricotta into a sieve and place over a bowl for about 15 minutes to allow some of the moisture in the ricotta to drain out.
- While the ricotta is draining, cut up your ham into small cubes and add it to a large bowl.
- Now add your grated parmesan, 1 egg, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
- Once your ricotta has let out a little moisture, add that to your bowl of ingredients and mix well and set aside.
- Take your other egg and crack it into a small bowl and whisk it with a fork and then set aside. This is your egg wash for the puff pastry that you will add before baking.
- Grab one sheet of your puff pastry and take it out of the package and place on to a lightly floured surface. You will work with one sheet a time to keep the puff pastry cold.
- Gently roll out your puff pastry into a 12 inch x 12 inch square.
- Now with a sharp knife, cut your puff pastry into even 4 inch squares. you should get about 12 squares per sheet. It does not need to be perfect.
Assembling the Calzones
- Take a tablespoon of the ham and ricotta mixture and place in the center of your puff pastry square.
- Take one corner of the puff pastry and fold it over to meet the opposite corner and press the top of the puff pastry into the bottom puff pastry to seal it.
- Once you have pressed the puff pastry into itself, fold the bottom of the seam area up over the top to create a lip edge. Again, it does not need to be perfect just sealed.
- Once you have finished with the first sheet of puff pastry, grab your second sheet out of your refrigerator and repeat these steps until all of the puff pastry and filling is used up.
- Place the calzones on to a sheet pan.
- Brush the calzones with your egg wash.
- Place the calzones in the oven to bake for 20-25 minutes or until they begin to get really golden brown and puffed.
- When done, remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes before eating.
came out amazing!