Buttery, soft, and made completely from scratch, this easy homemade biscuit recipe deserves a permanent place in your recipe repertoire. This recipe is made with all butter, no shortening!
With just 6 ingredients that I bet you already have on hand, these homemade biscuits are so simple to make and I’ve included plenty of tips (and a video!) to make sure you end up with perfect biscuits every single time.
Two reasons I’m super excited to share this homemade biscuit recipe with you today:
One: because homemade biscuits are delicious (obviously) and they’re so easy to make. So many people buy the canned version without realizing that they already have all of the ingredients to make them from scratch in their pantry.
The taste of a pre-made biscuit doesn’t hold a candle to a homemade biscuit. Not. even. close. Preservatives and artificial flavors, you aren’t welcome here.
Two: because ever since I started working on this biscuit recipe a few weeks ago, “Mind Your Own Biscuits” by Kacey Musgraves has been stuck in my head and I’ve been singing it off-key relentlessly.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Kacey Musgraves and her music, but every time I start singing my dog starts actually crying. It’s sad and hilarious, and if I wasn’t so embarrassed by my terrible singing voice I would have shared a video of it by now. Hopefully, by publishing this recipe I’ll release myself from the endless refrain and the animal abuse will finally stop.
But let’s talk more about the first reason.
Homemade biscuits call for just six ingredients: all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, butter, and milk. And then more butter once they’re finished baking because of course we need more butter.
I mentioned that these biscuits are easy so do not be alarmed by all the tips that I have for you below. These biscuits are easy, but technique matters and I want to arm you with all the information that you need so that you can make these easily and have them come out perfectly the very first time.
The tips are simple but important, and while some more seasoned bakers already know them, I want to give everyone an even playing field.
Tips for Making Homemade Biscuits
- The butter and milk for this recipe need to be as cold as possible for fluffy and soft biscuits. I freeze my butter before using it and recommend keeping the milk in the refrigerator right up until it’s time to add it to the dry ingredients.
- Don’t overwork the dough! Keep in mind that you want your butter to stay as cold as possible when making these biscuits, and the more you have your hands on the dough the softer the butter will become. Definitely don’t use an electric mixer for this recipe.
- We’re going to do a little bit of laminating. This means folding the dough over itself multiple times (5-6 times here) to encourage flaky layers in our biscuits. You can watch the video below to see exactly how this is done.
- Don’t use a rolling pin, use your hands to gently work the dough into a flat rectangle before cutting out your biscuits.
- Don’t be afraid to add flour to the dough if it’s too sticky while you are handling it (and make sure to work on a lightly floured surface).
Visual clue: If you look at the pre-baked biscuit below, you’ll see that you can actually see the butter pieces in the dough. This is what you want, the ingredients won’t be well-combined like with a cookie dough and seeing bits of butter means you’ve actually done everything right here. Hooray!
A Few Notes on Butter in Homemade Biscuits
The butter is possibly the most important part of this recipe, and the way you handle it can make or break your homemade biscuits.
While you can certainly use a pastry cutter to cut your butter into the dry ingredients, I recommend freezing your butter for about 30 minutes before beginning. Then, use a box grater to grate the butter before combining this in with your dry ingredients.
I use this technique in my scone recipes and highly recommend it with these biscuits, too. Not only is it much easier than using a pastry cutter, but it does a great job of finely shredding and distributing the butter throughout the mixture without overworking the butter (remember, you want to manage the butter as little as possible so that it’s as cold as possible when going into the oven).
Alternatively you could also use a food processor (like I do with my pie crust recipe), but it’s just so easy to grate in the butter that I always use this method instead.
And yes, I do recommend using unsalted butter in this recipe and then adding salt. If you want to know more about why I write my recipes this way, you can read all about it (and an easy substitution if you only have salted butter on hand) in this post that I wrote about salted vs unsalted butter.
I know I’ve mentioned to you guys a few times that I’ve been working on a baking contest/challenge/I’m really not sure what to call it, but I’m planning a post where I encourage all of you to bake along with me. The goal is to get people baking recipes they may have not tried before, and I’m encouraging everyone to share their results for a chance to win a small prize.
Well, today’s homemade biscuit recipe is essentially the base for the baking challenge that I’ll be sharing in exactly one week, so take this as a hint that making today’s recipe is a great way to get a jump start for the challenge!
To make sure you’re among the first to be notified of all new recipes and baking challenges, make sure you’re subscribed to my e-mail list. It’s free, and you get a free e-book of 8 of my favorite cookie recipes.
Enjoy!
How to Make Homemade Biscuits
I know I talked a lot in this video, but I really feel that the tips are so important, and will help ensure your biscuits come out perfectly!
Homemade Biscuits
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (250g)
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter very cold (85g), unsalted European butter is ideal, but not required
- ¾ cup whole milk¹ (177ml) buttermilk or 2% milk will also work
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- For best results, chill your butter in the freezer for 10-20 minutes before beginning this recipe. It's ideal that the butter is very cold for light, flaky, buttery biscuits.
- Preheat oven to 425F and line a cookie sheet with nonstick parchment paper. Set aside.
- Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and mix well. Set aside.2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 Tablespoon baking powder, 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon salt
- Remove your butter from the refrigerator and either cut it into your flour mixture using a pastry cutter or (preferred) use a box grater to shred the butter into small pieces and then add to the flour mixture and stir.6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- Cut the butter or combine the grated butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Add milk, use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir until combined (don't over-work the dough).¾ cup whole milk¹
- Transfer your biscuit dough to a well-floured surface and use your hands to gently work the dough together. If the dough is too sticky, add flour until it is manageable.
- Once the dough is cohesive, fold in half over itself and use your hands to gently flatten layers together. Rotate the dough 90 degrees and fold in half again, repeating this step 5-6 times but taking care to not overwork the dough.
- Use your hands (do not use a rolling pin) to flatten the dough to 1" thick and lightly dust a 2 ¾" round biscuit cutter with flour.
- Making close cuts, press the biscuit cutter straight down into the dough and drop the biscuit onto your prepared baking sheet.
- Repeat until you have gotten as many biscuits as possible and place less than ½" apart on baking sheet.
- Once you have gotten as many biscuits as possible out of the dough, gently re-work the dough to get out another biscuit or two until you have at least 6 biscuits.
- Bake on 425F for 12 minutes or until tops are beginning to just turn lightly golden brown.
- If desired, brush with melted salted butter immediately after removing from oven. Serve warm and enjoy.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Penny likes to supervise the photography process. Fortunately, this setup got her vote of approval.
LaLa
Hi Sam I tried your biscuit recipe it was very hard for me to grade due to the fact that I have injuries to my hands but I think I should do like Greg did and make everything cold then it wouldn’t melt while I’m grading it and maybe I’d have flaky or biscuits but they turned out great and I didn’t use it to 3/4 cutting but I did roll it out with the rolling pin and I cut them with a shot glass so that everybody would have a few biscuits instead of one.I use whole milk and salted butter and 2 tablespoons of baking soda and baking powder and it turned out they turned out great we had him with our chicken fried steak and gravy.
So I’m more of a fan of using the pastry cutter since I don’t have a processor or mixer thank you and I look forward to more recipes from you
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits. That’s a great idea to make them smaller so everyone gets a few. I always have to make a double or triple batch! Happy baking. 🙂
Kristoffer Scola
I substituted 1% for whole milk (all I had) and added 1/4 cp. I sour cream. They’ll be out of the oven in 5 minutes… I’ll let you know.
Contessa
Hi i just wanted to know if its possible to use buttermilk on this recipe? I have a lot that needed to get rid off, can i replace them with that?
Sam
Many people have tried it, I think buttermilk will work just fine. 🙂
Kate
We are die-hard biscuit fans and have tried dozens of recipes, and this one is officially our absolute favorite! Thank you so much for sharing and helping us up our biscuit game 🙂 We have one question. I’ve heard that you can freeze uncooked biscuits and then just pull them out of the freezer and bake them, usually for slightly longer than the normal time. Do you have instructions for how to freeze and bake these biscuits from your amazing recipe? I basically want to fill my freezer with them but I want to be sure we do it right!
Sam
Hi, Kate! I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits. If I were to freeze them, I would cut out the biscuits wrap them individually and then store them in an air tight container, or zipper plastic bag. You will need to bake them for an extra minute or two. Enjoy. 🙂
Teri
I made a dairy free version of this recipe using unsweetened almond milk and Earth Balance vegan baking stick, in place of the milk and butter. My hubby is dairy allergic. Also, rather than traditional round biscuits, I just used a pizza cutter to cut them into squares. By far, the tastiest, fluffiest, easiest biscuits I’ve ever made!
Sam
Thanks for the feedback, Teri! I am so glad you enjoyed them. 🙂
Whitney
OMG these are good! And easy!!! Used buttermilk instead of whole milk because it was what I had.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them, Whitney! 🙂
Violet
I tried this recipe. But I cannot have wheat. Neither can my son. So I tried this & subbed the wheat flour for spelt & oatmeal flour. 1c of each. I used almond milk instead of the whole milk. But I reduced the almond milk by 1/4c & remaining used raw cream. I also used the butter. All ingredients were organic, including the raw cream. This came out extremely amazing! We ate them all in the same day! For some reason this recipe and my substitutes worked because other recipes in the past hadn’t when I subbed the wheat for oatmeal. I think the oatmeal flour & spelt blend works very good together.
Sam
Thank you for all that information Violet! I am so glad they turned out for you and you still enjoyed them. 🙂
Natalina Buthello
Loved your biscuit recipe and video.
Eager to try but am unwell. Will try once back to normal.
Sam
O no! Feel better soon, so you can enjoy some biscuits! 🙂
Susan Perry
I just tried your recipe tonight to go with homemade chicken noodle soup, and they came out delicious! Thank you very much for sharing your recipe!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them Susan! 🙂
Cathy
Love ❤️ these are the best….. easy to make and I love the butter and grater tip!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them, Cathy! 🙂
Jamie
Is it possible to use salted butter?
Sam
Yes you can. Typically you would reduce the salt by 1/8 teaspoon per 1 stick of butter, but since there isn’t even a stick of butter here, I wouldn’t worry too much about cutting the salt. 🙂
Greg
Snowday, took the time to make these with sausage gravy. Followed directions exactly, and they turned out perfect. I do pre freeze the mixing bowl, and butter and grater. Also, I use the large cooler ice blocks- one to keep my counter top cold until needed, and another to set my mixing bowl on when combining the butter with the other ingredients. They finished with crispy tops, layered, with a light flakey inside. None left. I do pie crust the same way. If you pre plan carefully, these are a cinch to make.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them, Greg! 🙂
Lisa
Can I use self-rising flour and regular milk, since that is what I have in my kitchen?
Sam
Hi, Lisa. I am not sure what you mean by regular milk? I also have not tried self rising flour, so I am not sure how it would turn out.
Erin
I have tried this recipe with self rising flour and regular milk and they turned out perfect!
Nikoleta
It seems very easy recipe and I will try to make it but can i freeze them uncooked?
Sam
Hi, Nikoleta. Yes you can freeze them uncooked. After you cut out the shapes, wrap each one individually then store in an air tight container. 🙂
Sara
Do you think that 1% milk would be okay? It’s all I have & I just left the grocery :/
Thank you!!
Butter is in the freezer already!
Sam
Hi Sara! I don’t know that 1% milk would work, I’m worried the biscuits may come out a little too dry. If you do try them that way would you let me know how they turn out, though?
Megan
I made these with fat free milk because that’s all I had. I think they turned out great! We had them with chicken and gravy. Next time I have whole milk in the fridge, I’ll make them to see if I notice a difference.