Are calzones better than pizza?

You probably know someone who has spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on a wood-fired pizza oven in a quest to make the perfect homemade pizza. Perfecting pizza at home is a laudable goal, because it means you can control all of the variables to end up with a pie that is exactly what you want. If you have struggled to make homemade pizza, Taste Cooking’s Lisa Ruland has a suggestion: make calzones instead. She extols the virtues of these delicious pockets of delightful dough and oozing cheese.

Ruland is definitely in the camp of calzone > pizza, mainly for the reason that calzones are easier to make at home. “The simple fill-and-fold method makes calzones a perfect entry recipe for beginner pizza makers, and a great pizza-adjacent alternative for experienced pizzaioli looking for a change,” she writes. Calzone filling possibilities are as endless as pizza toppings, offering infinite variety (a boon for households with picky eaters).

The EYB Library offers over 950 calzone recipes, with 121 of those available online. That’s more than two different calzones per week for an entire year! Here are a few member favorites to get you started:

• Kale, mushroom, and ricotta calzones from Two Peas and Their Pod
• Spinach-ricotta calzones from Bread Illustrated
• Calzone from Jamie at Home
• Butter chicken calzones from Food & Wine Magazine
• Chorizo, rocket & preserved lemon calzones from BBC Good Food Magazine
• Three-cheese calzones from Food Network Magazine (pictured)