Easy Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe

Tall and flaky, these easy buttermilk biscuits have tons of layers that can be pulled apart to be slathered in butter or strawberry jam. Homemade buttermilk biscuits from scratch are ready in about 30 minutes from start to finish. This easy recipe is perfect for every level of cook.

I’ll give you variations and substitutions where I can, plus helpful tips and tricks for success. Read on for this info as well as the recipe. If you’d like to skip straight to the recipe, use the jump to recipe button at the top of the post.

You may also be interested in my Parmesan potato biscuits and my potato dill biscuits recipes. For ease of browsing, you can find all of my bread recipes in one place.

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Easy buttermilk biscuits

This easy biscuit recipe is ready in under 30 minutes and uses 7 common pantry ingredients.

They pair perfectly with most soup recipes and make an excellent addition to breakfast as well.

Growing up, the only biscuits we had were out of a can. Homemade biscuits always seemed a mystery to me. I assumed they were difficult to make and I was afraid to attempt them when I was younger.

If only I’d known how easy they are to make, I could have been enjoying these fluffy homemade biscuits much more often.

Ingredients

These basic buttermilk biscuits use common pantry ingredients to keep this recipe simple.

1. All purpose flour – the regular flour you have in the pantry.
2. Baking powder & baking soda – these are leaveners to help the biscuits rise.
3. Salt – the biscuits need to be seasoned.
4. Cold butter – butter needs to be very cold to help build those flaky layers.
5. Cold buttermilk – the liquids should be cold to keep everything else cold.
6. Sugar – a little sugar gives the biscuits good flavor.

How to make easy buttermilk biscuits

• First, sift all of the dry ingredients together into a medium bowl.
• Next, cut in the cold butter using a pastry blender. You can also do this in a food processor by pulsing until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

• Pour in buttermilk and stir just until the mixture comes together.
• Dump the crumbly dough out and pat it together, folding several times to form layers.
• Cut biscuits out, place on baking sheet, then brush with buttermilk or cream before baking.

Tips and tricks for success

Making easy buttermilk biscuits from scratch is not difficult, but there are a few tricks and tips to follow that will guarantee tall, fluffy, perfect biscuits every time.

1. Not too thick: My number one piece of advice would be to pat out the dough to no more than 1/2 inch. The photo above shows what happens when your biscuit dough is too tall. They tend to flop over instead of rising up nice and straight.
2. Don’t overwork the dough: The dough will be crumbly when you dump it out of the bowl, that’s normal. Resist the urge to knead the dough. The goal is to bring it together with the least amount of handling possible.
3. Even thickness: Another helpful tip is to make sure the dough is fairly level. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but make sure the dough is patted out to roughly the same thickness.
4. Cold butter: As the butter melts, it creates pockets of steam in the dough. For best results, put the cubed butter in the freezer for 15 minutes right before you cut it into the flour. The butter should be very, very cold.
5. Don’t twist the biscuit cutter: Press straight down and pull up. Twisting the cutter will prevent the buttermilk biscuits from rising to their potential.

Frequently asked questions

Want to add in some extra flavor? Chop up a tablespoon or two of fresh herbs like dill and add in when mixing the dough.

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Originally published 3/21/13, most recent update 3/29/22.

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