Buffalo Chicken Calzone

The Superbowl is coming up, and one of the best parts of the Superbowl is of course the food. And the commercials.... and I guess the football part too. This recipe is a PERFECT meal to bring to a Superbowl party.

This amazing recipe is adapted from one of my very best friends Emily's recipe.  Emily just got engaged on New Year's Eve and I am excited for her!  Emily and I have been friends since SIXTH grade.  That means we were 11 years old. This means I have been friends with her for over 50% of my life.  Her fiancee Will is also a super nice guy, and I just can't wait for the wedding in December of this year!  They are truly the best engaged couple I know :)

Anyway, about a year ago Emily was talking about what she ate for dinner and it sounded so mouth watering I made her email me the recipe.  I made a few alterations from her recipe and here it goes...


You'll need:

1 can of pizza dough
2 tablespoons of ranch dressing 
1 - 1 1/2 cups of mozzarella cheese
1 pound of grilled chicken (shredded is easier to eat and preferred, but chopped chicken works too)
1/2 cup of hot sauce (I LOVE Frank's hot sauce, it's the only one I use)


Step-by-step:
1. Grill your chicken and season per usual. I grill mine on a skillet. Then shred or chop.
2. In a small bowl, take the chicken and pour in 1/2 cup of hot sauce, mix until the chicken is completely covered in sauce. 

3. Take a large baking pan and grease generally. Take the can of pizza dough (I used pillsbury), and roll it out using a rolling pin. 
4. Put ranch dressing on one half of the pizza dough. 

5. Pour the chicken over the ranch dressing, and cover the chicken with mozzarella cheese (this will still leave one half of the dough untouched)

this is where I start to get hungry

6. Fold the half of the rest of the dough over the chicken/cheese mixture and pinch around the edges to seal it.
7. Use a tiny bit of olive oil on top of the sealed calzone, and use a bit of seasoning to add flavor (I like Italian seasoning for this).  Using your fork, poke some holes to let the steam out/ventilate, or use a knife and slit the dough a bit.

8. Bake at 400 degrees for about 17 minutes or until golden top.  The heat is VERY sensitive, so keep a close eye on it every 5 minutes.


Alternatives: I have used BBQ sauce instead of hot sauce and it was amazing. Emily's original recipe calls for cream cheese rather than mozzarella, and she used bleu cheese rather than ranch!  You can also sub out fried chicken tenders instead of grilled. No matter what you do, it is DELISH! 


Also, if you're feeding a big crowd, you can double the entire recipe and use the second pizza dough to cover the top one!  I've done this before and it worked just fine!

There ya go, a classic Superbowl treat!  Now that the Texans are no longer in the playoffs (sniff), I no longer cares who the victor is. 

-Domesticated Duchess