Italian Baked Hamburgers with Cheese
For a delicious, fun spin on a traditional homemade hamburger recipe, these Italian baked hamburgers with cheese are outstanding! Most often known as calzones, they give new meaning to awesome flavor!
Cooking Time30 min
Ingredients
- 2 loaves of pizza dough or thawed frozen bread dough
- 1/2 pound ground beef (ground round or other low fat ground beef)
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup dried tomatoes
- 1 cup shredded mozerrella cheese
- 2 cup spinach (wash it and cook it; chop coarsely)
- 1 or 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon (or less) olive oil
- Parmesan cheese, to taste
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Refresh the tomatoes in hot water and chop them.
- Crush and sauté garlic in olive oil.
- Add the ground beef. Cook. Drain off excess oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Take each loaf of pizza dough or bread dough and cut it into 4 pieces.
- Pat, roll or stretch each piece into a 6-9" circle.
- Be sure to keep all filling at least 1/4" from the edge or else you will have trouble sealing them. Place 1-2 tablespoons of meat on half of the dough.
- Add some tomato bits and spinach.
- Top with 1 tablespoon of cheese and a bit of Parmesan.
- Dip your fingers into warm water.
- Wet the edge of the dough.
- Stretch half of the dough over the filling and press the edges to seal.
- Either use your fingers or a fork to seal them, or you can roll the bottom edge up over the top edge, twisting them together like a rope around the edge. This method in slightly more time consuming, but the calzones generally don't leak.
- Place calzones on a baking sheet that has been greased or covered with cornmeal. Let them rise in a warm place for 30-60 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Brush calzones lightly with oil.
- Bake 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees F.