Easy Homemade Biscuits

These flaky biscuits are addicting! They're buttery, soft, and have tons of flaky layers! This Easy Homemade Biscuit recipe is perfect for family dinners, holidays, and is the best side dish to just about any comfort food. Bonus? You only need 7 basic ingredients. This is the best biscuit recipe ever!

Want more buttery biscuit recipes? Try these Maple Biscuits, Sage Brown Butter Biscuits with Parmesan and Bacon Cheddar and Thyme Biscuits!

Jump to:

• Ingredient Notes
• How to make Homemade Biscuits
• What to Eat with Homemade Biscuits
• Tips for making the Perfect Homemade Biscuits
• Recipe FAQs
• More Comfort Food Recipes!
• Easy Homemade Biscuits

Nothing says comfort food like a warm fluffy biscuit. I make these biscuits any time I'm having family over for Sunday dinner. It's one of those old faithful, tried and true recipes that I love. That everyone loves.

The biscuits are buttery and soft with lots of flaky layers. They're also fluffy at the same time with a nice crisp exterior and a pillowy soft middle that's so delicious fresh out of the oven. These are the very best biscuits you'll ever make!

Ingredient Notes

A few simple ingredients go a long way for this recipe.

Butter: the butter is the most important ingredient in this easy biscuit recipe. The temperature of the butter can make or break your biscuits. You want the butter to be as cold as possible. Place the butter into the freezer for at least 20 minutes prior using for the recipe. I like to pinch the flour and butter together into small pieces but you can use a cheese grater, pastry blender, or a food processor to mix the butter and the flour together.

Buttermilk: I love using buttermilk, it makes for super tender biscuits and adds a lot of flavor. If you don't have buttermilk, it can easily be made from whole milk or any regular milk. See this guide on how to make buttermilk.

Sugar: while sugar adds a touch of sweetness to these tasty biscuits, sugar has a more important roll in this recipe than just that. Sugar inhibits gluten formation, allowing the biscuits to become soft and tender. It also adds moisture making these homemade buttermilk biscuits even more delicious.

Flour: all-purpose flour is sufficient for this recipe, no need to use self-rising flour. If you only have self-rising flour, you can use it, just omit baking powder and salt. Add the baking soda as per usual.

Leavening agents: baking powder and baking soda are used to lift the biscuits and make them nice and airy and fluffy.

How to make Homemade Biscuits

• Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
• Mix together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl - all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and kosher salt. (Image #1)
• Cut the butter and add it to the flour mixture. Pinch and turn the butter into the flour together until pea sized morsels form. You can also use a pastry cutter or a box grater to grate the butter prior to adding it to the flour. (Image #2 and 3)

• Pour in cold buttermilk and mix together with a wooden spoon until a shaggy crumbly dough forms. The dough may seem very crumbly, do not add more buttermilk! (Image #4)

• Remove biscuit dough from the bowl and turn the dough out onto lightly floured surface. Gently work and pat the dough until the dough is no longer crumbly. Cut the dough into 4 pieces and place on top of each other. (If you see big chunks of butter, don't worry - this is good!) (Image #5)

• Use your hands to press the pieces together and then use a rolling pin to flatten dough until it's 1 inch thick. (Image #6)
• Press a 2 ¾ inch round biscuit cutter into the dough and place biscuits onto a baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Fold any excess dough back together and repeat until all of the biscuit dough is used, about 8-9 biscuits. (Image #7)
• Brush the tops of the biscuits with heavy cream.

• Bake biscuits in the oven for 14-15 minutes, until the tops of the biscuits are golden brown and you can see the flaky layers.
• Brush with melted butter and serve.

What to Eat with Homemade Biscuits

Biscuits are the perfect accompaniment for just about any meal! Some of my favorite recipes to eat with these delicious homemade biscuits are:

• Seafood Boil or Low Country Boil
• Creamy Dijon Braised Beef (especially with mashed potatoes)
• Sausage Gravy
• Creamy Mushroom Chicken
• Slow Cooker Baby Back Ribs
• Keep it simple and enjoy with some honey butter or a dollop of sour cream

Tips for making the Perfect Homemade Biscuits

• Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes prior to slicing it into the flour mixture. Also, leave the buttermilk in the refrigerator until you're ready to use it. The butter and buttermilk should be as cold as possible - this is key to getting that nice flaky fluffy texture! Do not use room temperature butter.
• Use a wooden spoon to mix the dry and wet ingredients. This will help to keep the biscuit dough cold as your hands are warm and will lower the temperature of the butter. We want to keep the dough as cold as possible to ensure we get fluffy biscuits.
• Do not overwork your dough. There's no need to knead the dough, just press it together until it's no longer crumbly, then stop. Overworking the dough will result in tough biscuits.
• When cutting the biscuits, do not twist the biscuit cutter. Simply press down and then pull it straight up. Cut straight down into the dough. When you twist the cutter, the layers collapse on each other and the biscuits won't cook evenly.
• If you would like to use a food processor to incorporate the butter into the flour, you can absolutely do this. It does help save time. However, just be sure to pour to add the butter/flour mixture to a large bowl prior to adding the buttermilk. The dough becomes thick and could break the food processor once the milk is added.
• Oven temp is also very important when making any baked goods but especially this easy Homemade Biscuit recipe. Not all ovens are calibrated the same way so be sure to use an oven thermometer to ensure your oven's temperature is accurate.

Recipe FAQs

More Comfort Food Recipes!