This homemade Buttermilk Biscuits recipe is quick to make and yields the most amazing buttery, flaky biscuits. They’re SO much better than store bought and only require simple pantry ingredients.
If you love warm bread recipes you should try Buttermilk Cornbread, Cinnamon Roll Biscuits, Whole Wheat Bread, Applesauce Bread, or Perfect Cinnamon Rolls.
Why I love this Buttermilk Biscuits recipe:
- Texture – When you make buttermilk biscuits from scratch the dough is folded into layers to create the flaky biscuits we all love, with a crisp exterior and soft and chewy interior.
- Sweetened with honey, instead of sugar, which adds the best subyle sweetness, and softness.
- Versatile – Eat warm slathered with butter and homemade strawberry jam, or enjoy with a warm bowl of soup. Use for breakfast sandwiches, as a side to egg casserole, or with our delicious sausage gravy over the top!
How to make Biscuits:
Combine Dry Ingredients: Stir baking powder, flour, and salt together in a large bowl. Grate the frozen butter into the flour then use a pastry blender or mix the butter in. Place the mixing bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes. Similar to making pie crust, we want our ingredients to stay cold up until the biscuits go into the oven so that they bake with flakey, tender layers.
Add Wet Ingredients: Measure buttermilk into a liquid measuring cup then stir in the honey. (If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, use my buttermilk substitute). Add to the flour mixture from the fridge and stir together just until combined. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently mold into a ball.
Shape Dough: Press the dough with your hands (or a rolling pin) into a rectangle that is about ½ inch thick. Fold the dough into thirds, like a brochure. Repeat that process one more time, pressing the dough down to ½ inch thick and then folding it into thirds. This process helps create layers that will allow for a flakey biscuit texture.
Cut Out Biscuits: Roll the dough just ¾ inch thick then use biscuits cutters to cut into desired sizes.
Bake: Place biscuits on a parchment paper lined baking sheet then bake them for 10-12 minutes at 400°F.
Serve: I love to serve these easy buttermilk biscuits with strawberry jam, sausage gravy, with a bowl of soup, or topped with whipped cream and strawberries for a strawberry shortcake!
Storage and Freezing Instructions:
To Make Ahead: Prepare biscuits dough as directed, but before cutting the dough to bake, cover the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to days, before cutting and baking.
To Freeze: Prepare dough up until baking. Place uncooked biscuits on a parchment lined baking sheet, cover lightly with plastic wrap and freeze for 30 minutes. Transfer to a freezer safe bag or container and freeze for up to 3 months. Place frozen biscuits on a baking sheet, covered, to thaw overnight in the fridge before baking. Baked biscuits also freeze well, stored in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Recipe Variations:
Check out these breakfast favorites:
- Breakfast Skillet
- Hashbrown Breakfast Casserole
- English Muffins
- Chocolate Banana Bread
- Chocolate Overnight Oats
- Cottage Cheese Pancakes
- Crab Cake Benedict
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Recipe
Buttermilk Biscuits
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 5 Tablespoons butter , frozen
- 3/4 cup buttermilk*
- 3 Tablespoons honey
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°
- Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Grate the frozen butter into the flour mixture and then use a pastry blender or fork to incorporate it until mixture resembles coarse meal. Chill in refrigerator for 10 minutes.
- Stir honey into buttermilk until well blended.
- Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and stir just until moist. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and form gently into a ball. Roll or pat the dough into a rectangle ½ inch thick.
- Fold the dough into thirds (as if folding a piece of paper to fit into an envelope). Gently re-roll dough into a rectangle, ½ inch thick. Fold dough into thirds one more time. Gently roll to a 3/4-inch thickness.
- Cut dough with a biscuit or cookie cutter to form 10-12 biscuits. Place them 1 inch apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Bake at 400° for 10-12 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Remove from pan and cool on wire racks.
- Store biscuits at room temperature for 1-2 days, or for best results, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze leftover biscuits in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Notes
Nutrition
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*I originally shared this recipe April 2013. Updated December 2018 and March 2022 and November 2023.
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Just a quick note to say I’m one of those Southerners raised to prefer non-sweet biscuits and cornbread. I was looking for a good buttermilk substitute, and I found yours. I do love a pound cake made with buttermilk, and sweetened with sugar. –Anne in Oregon
This is a really good recipe to use as a starter point for add-ins as well. I love to add a bit of sharp cheddar to some or soften raisins in biling water for a few minutes and add.
Also when cutting it is a good idea to press straight down on cutter. Most of us will squash down and turn while cutting and this will destroy the lovely layers!
What a lovely honey scone recipe. Scones are made with APF, small amount of sweetener and butter.
Biscuits are made with lard or shortening and they don’t include sugar, honey or other sweeteners. And if you really want to up your biscuit game use SRF which has a lower protein flour that makes a very tender biscuit.
Made biscuits following recipe. The biscuits were light and fluffy but two of four eating did not care for the honey flavor.
This is our go to recipe because we usually have everything on hand! It’s a crowd pleaser every time. Thank you so much!
Tastes amazing. Super easy with the freezing the butter then grating it in. But only 2 of my biscuits rose. The rest stayed flat. Idk what I did wrong!
Possibly could your baking powder be expired? That’ll do it!!
Everyone loved them, I will be making them again real soon.
Delicious and easy to make!
Amazing! Perfect recipe and easy to follow for the beginner baker! Family was asking for more! Thank you for the easy to understand instructions!
Add these twice already this week! First time I made them I did a single batch and also made the sausage gravy recipe she has posted and holy holy was it the perfect comfort food night recipe I could never find. I’m Canadian and living in Canada, so sausage and biscuits is not “typical” up here, but I made them for my MIL and she was in love!
I made a double batch this morning and made them using a little less honey (the honey I have is a bit more pungent so I added a little less to have it balance in the biscuits) and I also ran out of baking powder so I substituted 1 tsp baking powder = 1/4 tsp baking soda + 1/2 cream of tartar. I found using the baking powder substitue mentioned above did make these just a bit more light and fluffy. I’ll have to try and compare again to see if it was a difference maker or if it was just having done it once already, but I’ll have plenty of opportunities to do so because I am making sure this recipe gets committed to memory. Absolutely perfect! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Probably the worst biscuit recipe I’ve ever made. Did not rise well at all. Heavy dough. Tasted terrible and I tried twice. All new ingredients. I’ve been baking for 20 years. As soon as I mixed it I knew something didn’t look right.
Terrible, sorry. Cooking time, ingredient ratios, awful. Did you even try this recipe?
Could you explain what went wrong exactly? We’ve been making this recipe for many years and they’re our absolute favorite biscuits. I’d love try and help you get them right.
I really wish I could post a photo so those can see this recipe does result in the amount that is stated. I wanted mini biscuits for our daughters so I made 8 good size biscuits and 10 smaller sizes. If I didn’t make the smaller ones, I have no doubt I would have been able to create the amount stated in recipe.
I chose to use your recipe for homemade buttermilk as well (vinegar and soy) and worked great. Thanks!
I also cooked these biscuits in a Gourmia air fryer at 375. For the regular biscuit size I used 11 minutes and the smaller size 9 minutes should work.
I plan on making your gravy recipe to accompany this. Thank you very much. Even tasted great with butter and cinnamon sugar topping!
How much sugar could I substitute for the honey? My grandson can’t eat honey just yet.
I would do 2 Tbs. of sugar and add a tiny bit of liquid (like a tsp.) if you feel the dough is dry! Enjoy!!
I live in Denmark now, however my years in Tennessee made me LOVE bisquits and gravy – and these are the BEST!!! Thank you for bringing the south all the way to Denmark!
Sooooo good!! Love all your recipes
Like making homemade things from scratch this is perfect site
Do you have to use the honey or can you leave it out?
Great recipe, but it only makes around 5 biscuits at the specified height. I noticed that the 10-12 it said it would make does not angle when you press the 2x and 3x ingredient buttons, so it’s possible the author just tried to go for the average. Either way keep that in mind.
Very Good
Family tradition on Sunday for the past year. Everyone loves these!
The biscuits are great in flavor but the recipe does not make the amount it says with the hight it says to roll out to. I started rolling into a square to the correct hight. Then I cut off a thin edge around the sides and make square biscuits It makes 9 and they rise on all sides because of the cutting.
These were a lot easier to make than anticipated. My husband LOVED them. They were easy and delicious.
Best biscuits I’ve ever eaten! I used whipping cream instead of butter milk and they came out fluffy and tasty, best part is this recipe doesn’t have that oily after taste like the canned biscuits has.
If I roll this dough to 3/4 inch thickness, I get 5 biscuits if I’m lucky. To get 11 I had to roll it out to 1/2 inch thickness. I’ve never been able to get 12.
Baking powder, is it 2 half spoons or 2 and a half spoons.
It’s 2 and 1/2 teaspoons.
Followed these instructions was left with a sticking mess that never formed up. Could never fold the dough over, was nearly impossible to roll out…. Had to use a lot of flour on the surface to even begin to handle things so I could cut them. Not sure what went wrong but clearly something didn’t pan out. Bummed.
Same here. I followed everything exactly, got to the “roll” stage and just started laughing. No way this sticky mess is rolling. I ended up making drop biscuits with the batter, they were pretty awful.
Next time be sure to use a floured countertop and flour on top of the batter!
This is a great, simple recipe for delicious biscuits!
Used vegan butter (Earth Balance) & agave instead of honey. These biscuits worked well, & I’ll definitely make them again!
They turned out great. Loved this recipe.
These are delicious. Very flaky.
Holy moly this ended up being perfect!!!
Worked really well! Love the taste of these biscuits.
I made these to exact specifications and my biscuits did not rise, did not like the sweet back-taste and would not use this recipe again. Needed more salt, less sweet – wish I had left the honey out!
What can I substitute for the honey?
Sugar or maple syrup.
These were delicious! The first time i wasn’t patient enough to fold them over enough times, but the second time that made all the difference. I also found the easiest way to grate the butter was with a zucchini spiralizer. Uniform thin pieces of butter that were super easy to blend in!
The biscuits were kinda undercooked even after 15 min at 400f. Then I looked at a few other recipes and they suggested 450-475f. Sharing in case this helps others. Biscuits tasted great otherwise!
Delicious biscuits! I doubled the recipe for my big family.
I followed the recipe and was delighted with the results. The biscuits were lovely flaky layers!
These were really good! I accidentally used self rising flour and they were still good! Very fluffy! They reminded me of restaurant style biscuits.
These remind me of my granny’s biscuits from so long ago. The first time I tasted one, I started to well up! I used to watch her make little mini-biscuits for dinner. In the morning, sis and I would split them in half, add some butter and bake them again under the broiler as “biscuit toast”. Just like granny’s, they are SO delicious!
What is 3.4 cup buttermilk? 3/4 cup or 3 to 4 cups?
3/4 cup! fixed 🙂
I have been looking for a biscuit recipe!!! Thanks so much 🙂
You’re welcome Lisa! You’ll love this one!
These look delicious 🙂 My little man loves biscuits, so I definitely want to make him these.
Thanks Hilary! I hope he loves thems like we do!