Enjoying a big homemade breakfast on the weekend is one of my favorite things ever and no weekend breakfast is complete without buttery homemade biscuits. These easy biscuits are my “basic” biscuit recipe that I’ve been using for years. They’re quick, simple, and perfect alongside some fried eggs and bacon on a lazy Sunday morning. Slather on some butter and honey, or maybe your favorite jam, and that’s breakfast heaven.
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Ingredients for Homemade Biscuits
The best part about making homemade biscuits is that you only need pantry staples, which means you can whip up a batch at any time without any planning. Here’s what you’ll need to make this easy biscuit recipe:
- Butter: We use salted butter in our biscuits because that’s usually what we have on hand. If you have unsalted butter, add an extra scant ¼ tsp to the dry ingredients. To make this recipe easier, freeze your butter 30-60 minutes before you begin.
- All-Purpose Flour: Nothing fancy here, just your average everyday flour. If you want to add some whole wheat flour to the mix, you can substitute up to 50% without affecting the texture too much. Or, you can substitute with self-rising flour and leave out the baking powder and baking soda.
- Baking Powder & Baking soda: These two ingredients are responsible for making the biscuits nice and fluffy. Because we’re using vinegar to create a faux buttermilk, we us a combination of baking soda and baking powder to prevent the dough from being overly acidic.
- Salt: The master ingredient that helps every flavor become more bold. Salt is especially important in breads and baked goods that are comprised mostly of bland ingredients, like flour.
- Milk: Whole milk adds moisture and a little more fat to keep the biscuits soft and moist.
- Vinegar: Instead of having to buy buttermilk just for this recipe, we “faked” buttermilk by combining milk and vinegar. You can use any light vinegar, like apple cider, rice, or white vinegar. Lemon juice can also be used in place of vinegar.
Use Buttermilk for More Flavor
The recipe below uses a buttermilk substitute (milk + vinegar or lemon juice) because I don’t often have buttermilk on hand. But if by rare chance you do have buttermilk use that in place of the milk and vinegar and you’ll have the most delicious biscuits ever. While buttermilk substitutes provide the same acidity as buttermilk, they don’t quite have as much flavor.
The Biscuit Method
This recipe uses a cooking technique called The Biscuit Method. This technique involves working butter or another solid fat into flour. When fat is combined with flour in this way the fat prevents the flour from forming a gluten matrix (like you have with kneaded bread), which leaves the dough quite soft and tender. To keep your biscuits as soft and tender as possible, you’ll want to avoid kneading the dough and work with it as little as possible as you shape and cut your biscuits. You can read more about the mechanics of the biscuit method here.
How to Store Leftover Biscuits
If you have a smaller household don’t skip this recipe just because it makes 8 biscuits! You can either freeze the baked biscuits or freeze the unbaked biscuits to cook later. To freeze the unbaked biscuits, simply freeze them on a lined baking sheet until solid, then transfer them to a freezer bag. Label, date, and freeze up to three months. To bake the biscuits from frozen, simply bake them straight from the freezer and add a few minutes to the baking time.
To freeze the biscuits that have already been baked, allow them to cool completely to room temperature. Place the biscuits in a freezer bag and freeze for up to three months. Thaw the biscuits at room temperature or microwave for 15-30 seconds.
What to Serve with Homemade Biscuits
Biscuits go with everything. -Signed, a Southerner.
But in all seriousness, if you’re not used to eating a biscuit with every meal let’s start with the classics. Biscuits are great with fried eggs and bacon, they pair famously well with sausage gravy, and you can use them to make delicious breakfast sandwiches.
Aside from breakfast, homemade biscuits make a great side dish for any dinner, served in place of a classic dinner roll. They’re especially good with thick soups, stews, and chilis.
Homemade Biscuits
Servings 8Ingredients
- 8 Tbsp butter (salted) ($1.12)
- 2.5 cups all-purpose flour ($0.39)
- 1 Tbsp baking powder ($0.06)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda ($0.02)
- 3/4 tsp salt ($0.05)
- 1 cup whole milk ($0.38)
- 1 Tbsp vinegar* ($0.06)
Instructions
- Freeze the butter for 30-60 minutes before you begin the recipe to make it extra cold and more solid for grating.
- Preheat the oven to 425ºF. In a large bow, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir until well combined.
- Use a cheese grater to grate the butter into the bowl with the flour. Once grated, use your hands to work the butter into the flour until it resembles cornmeal.
- Stir the vinegar into the milk. Pour the milk into the bowl with the butter and flour mixture, then stir until a dough forms.
- Place the dough on a lightly floured surface, then press it into a large rectangle. Fold the dough in on itself in thirds, like folding a letter. Then press it into a rectangle once again, about ½ to ¾-inch thick.
- Use a biscuit cutter or a drinking glass (about 3-inches in diameter) to cut biscuits out of the dough. Gather up the scraps, press them down again, and cut a few more biscuits until all of the dough is used up.
- Place the biscuits on a parchment lined baking sheet. For extra brown tops, brush a little milk on top.
- Bake the biscuits in the fully preheated 425ºF oven for 15-17 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Enjoy warm.
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Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Homemade Biscuits – Step By Step Photos
Before you begin, freeze 8 Tbsp butter (1 stick) for 30-60 minutes to make it extra cold and solid. This makes it easier to grate into the batter. When you’re ready to start making the biscuits, begin to preheat the oven to 425ºF. In a large bowl, combine 2.5 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 Tbsp baking powder, ½ tsp baking soda, and ¾ tsp salt. Stir until they are well combined.
Use a cheese grater to grate the semi-frozen butter into the flour mixture. Once grated, use your hands to work the butter into the flour until it kind of resembles cornmeal.
Combine 1 cup whole milk and 1 Tbsp vinegar (or lemon juice). Alternatively, you can use 1 cup of buttermilk. Pour the milk into the butter and flour mixture.
Stir until it forms a cohesive dough. Be careful not to over-stir. Don’t worry if there is a little flour left on the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too sticky, you can add a little flour in the next step.
Place the dough onto a floured surface and press it down into a large rectangle. Fold the dough in on itself into thirds, like folding a letter. This helps create a few layers in the biscuits. Finally, press it down into a rectangle once again, this time about ½ to ¾-inch thick.
Use a biscuit cutter or a drinking glass to cut the biscuits out of the dough. The glass I’m using is 3-inches in diameter. When you’ve cut all you can from the one piece of dough, gather up the scraps, press it down into a rectangle again, and cut a couple more. I got 8 biscuits out of my dough.
Place the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. If you want the tops to get extra browned, you can brush a little milk on top.
Bake the biscuits in the fully preheated 425ºF oven for 15-17 minutes, or until golden brown.
Enjoy your homemade biscuits warm, slathered with butter, and drizzled with honey or a dollop of your favorite jam!
Being southern, I have made biscuits several times a week for 50+ years. I have made them with butter, margarine, Crisco and oil. Biscuits are forgiving. You do need fresh baking powder. If you don’t bake often, your may be stale. You can try increasing by a teaspoon but baking powder contains salt so no more than one extra teaspoon. You don’t have to use paper or oil on the baking pan. I never have and I have never had one stick. Any kind of sour milk will work, buttermilk, vinegar in milk, or yogurt thinned with milk or water. Try them crammed together in a cake pan for a different treat. They can also be turned in to a treat with brown sugar, cinnamon and butter sprinkled over them. (Do this to the ones baking in a cake pan. You can add cheeses, herbs anything your little heart desires and your brain can think of. Biscuits are easy, the one rule is never knead them, the less you handle the dough the better.
These were so good, but mine didn’t get as fluffy, any one have an idea what I did wrong?
Sometimes if you over work the dough, they’ll be more dense and less fluffy. It’s like the opposite of making normal bread where you want to work the dough a lot to develop the gluten. In biscuits if you develop the gluten then it ruins the nice fluffy texture.
Do you use salted or unsalted butter? I only had salted butter on hand, so I went easy on adding extra salt, but they came out bland. I then felt funny salting my already-spread-with-jam biscuit. Delicious though. And I used almond milk.
I use salted butter in everything so that I don’t have to buy two types of butter. :)
I desperately want to make these tonight but i dont have foil or parchment. I normally always do, but my luck. Can i go without or spray the pan? Or will they stick no matter what?
You could probably spray the pan. I usually use the parchment/foil just for easy cleanup. I find that oil is extremely hard to get off of baking sheets!
Vanessa – To be honest, I’ve never cooked with margarine. As long as it has a similar water content as butter and not more, it should be fine (some reduced fat margarines have more water, which wouldn’t work for this).
Could I use margarine instead of butter?
mine didnt puff much either. some did others didnt i may not have mixed the dry ingredients enough is my thought and i cut them quite thin one was almost cracker consistancy the other was fluffy lol. For my first go i consider it a success.
Hmm, there are two possible reasons that i can think of that could have caused them to come out flat. Sometimes baking powder looses it’s efficacy. You can test it by adding a little water. It should fizz. Now that I think about it, make sure that you used 4 tsp of baking powder, not baking soda (there is some baking soda in the recipe, but a majority should be baking powder). Also, not adding enough milk could have caused flat biscuits too. If the dough is too stiff, it will have a hard time puffing up. The baking soda also needs moisture to react, so not having enough could have dampened the effect.
I don’t know if that helped, but I hope they turn out better next time!!
i made these tonight! but for some reason they didn’t rise at all. i don’t think it was because of using too much liquid, because i didn’t even end up using all of the milk to make the mixture come together. they are very delicious either way, just a bit flat!
I made them saturday & they were so good that we made them again on sunday! Sunday’s were a little better because I didn’t use a rolling pin & added a little extra milk.
Thank you! My first time baking biscuits. I’m fairly new to cooking and baking from scratch, and I love how you make it not scary!
I on a whim changed out the milk for coconut milk and they turned out great. Lactose free which is always a bonus for me.
I grew up with a southern Mom who made biscuits on a daily basis. (You know it’s a must with eggs, grits and molasses)! One trick that help makes them rise even higher is to put them close enough together on the pan so that they touch. You can also brush them with a little melted butter when they come out which gives them a nice shine and taste ever yummier! My son’s favorite breakfast is a biscuit sandwich made with scrambled egg and cheese placed between the biscuit. Oh, and if there are any leftovers, don’t throw them out….put them in a plastic ziplock and the next morning, slice open, smear a little butter on each side and add a slice of cheese. Broil at 375 degrees until cheese is melted.
Biscuits split apart and topped with cheese and broiled….oh, the yumminess!! This southern born girl hasn’t had that in years!
Great recipe! I’ve never made biscuits from scratch before and these were easy. I added some parmesan and chopped parsley because I had some left over from pasta. Delicious.
I just made and blogged about these last night and they turned out super amazingly delicious (although not quite as pretty as yours). Thanks so much for this recipe!!
This is the best biscuit recipe I’ve ever used :) Love your blog by the way, it’s very helpful!