A super simple recipe for Garlic Cheese Drop Biscuits. Ready in under 25 minutes, no mixer, no rolling pin, no biscuit cutters required! These simple drop biscuits make a great quick and easy side dish for any dinner!
An Easier Way to Make Biscuits
I’ve been on a bread-kick recently. Homemade bagels (coming soon!), soft pretzels, homemade dinner rolls, it’s been carb-central over here for the past few weeks. But while I’ve been fawning over these yeast-raised recipes and all their sophisticated rising time and whatnot, my current favorite is an easy biscuit recipe.
As easy as my classic well-loved biscuit recipe is (it has over 900 5-star ratings!), this garlic cheese drop-biscuit version is even easier. No pastry cutter or grater required for the butter, no mixer, no rolling, just a super simple recipe that can be mixed up by hand and ready to accompany your favorite dinner in under 25 minutes. These would be great alongside a bowl of potato soup, chili, or baked ziti. Also great for eating by themselves as a snack… excuse the crumbs on my keyboard please.
It’s also incredibly flavorful, between the garlic and the cheese and that gloriously buttery, brushed-on garlic-butter bath. Delectably garlicky like my garlic knots, but no yeast and no waiting for the dough to rise here!
What You Need
First, gather your ingredients. Nothing too fancy here:
- Butter. You’ll melt this. I like to use unsalted and then add salt to the recipe (see my post on salted vs unsalted butter for more info).
- Flour. Use all-purpose, do not use self-rising or any other type of flour.
- Sugar. Just a tablespoon of granulated sugar adds a richness of flavor but doesn’t make these drop biscuits actually sweet.
- Baking powder & baking soda to give these biscuit babies some serious lift and a soft, biscuity texture.
- Garlic powder. A little goes a long way!
- Salt.
- Buttermilk. You may use my easy buttermilk substitute instead.
- Cheddar cheese. I recommend using sharp cheddar. Make sure to grab the thickly shredded cheddar (or shred your own!!!) and not finely shredded cheese. I mean, finely shredded will work, but the texture is much better with giant pockets of melty cheddar.
I also list a range for the amount of cheese to use. Originally I made and tested this recipe with ½ cup of cheese. When filming the video I accidentally used 1 full cup instead. I was going to re-do the shot and re-make the drop biscuits, but decided to go ahead and bake the ones with 1 cup of cheddar and the results were… incredible. If you like cheesy biscuits I recommend going with a full cup!
How to Make Drop Biscuits
This is the easy part.
- Whisk all of your dry ingredients and sugar together.
- In a separate large measuring cup, whisk together your buttermilk and melted, cooled butter (it’s OK if the butter is a little warm and curdles, the biscuits will still turn out!).
- Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir in cheese.
- Drop the biscuits by heaping spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and cook until golden brown.
- Brush with a mixture of melted butter, garlic powder, and dried parsley.
That’s it. Literally takes me less than 10 minutes of prep and then another 10 minutes in the oven for perfect, carb-y, garlicky, cheesy biscuits.
A Few Tips:
- Don’t over-mix the batter when combining the wet and dry ingredients. Stir until just-combined. Over-mixing will make the biscuits dense and harder.
- If you live on the East coast, a sprinkle of old bay is a great addition to make these into cheddar bay drop biscuits! Stir it in with the dry ingredients. A little goes a long way, I’ll usually only add about ¼ teaspoon.
- Garlic Cheese Drop Biscuits will are best served warm, but they will keep for two days in an airtight container at room temperature.
- Use an ice cream scoop with a lever to easily scoop and drop rounded biscuits!
- Tuck any errant shreds of cheese into the biscuits before baking, otherwise they’ll crisp and maybe even burn on your baking sheet.
Enjoy!
More Recipes You Might Like:
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Garlic Cheese Drop Biscuits
Ingredients
- 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter melted
- 1 cup all-purpose flour (125g)
- 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ cup buttermilk (118ml)
- ½-1 cup sharp shredded cheddar cheese use a thick shred, not finely shredded (55-110g)
Topping
- 2 Tablespoons salted butter or unsalted, just add a dash of salt
- ⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon dried parsley
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450F (230C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Melt your butter and set it aside so it can begin to cool.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and garlic powder.
- In a separate bowl (or in a large measuring cup) whisk slightly cooled butter into buttermilk (it’s OK if the butter begins to re-solidify or the mixture looks curdled).
- Pour buttermilk mixture into flour mixture and stir until just-combined.
- Use a spoon or spatula to gently stir cheese into batter until incorporated.
- Using a pair of spoons, drop batter by heaping spoonfuls (about 3 Tbsp in size) onto prepared baking sheet, spacing at least 2” apart.
- Transfer to 450F oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until light golden brown.
- Meanwhile, prepare topping by whisking together butter, garlic powder, and dried parsley.
- When biscuits are finished baking, brush generously with butter mixture (use a pastry brush, or if you don’t have one simply spoon some of the butter on top of each biscuit).
- Serve warm.
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.
Cris
Hi Sam, would you recommend that the buttermilk is at room temperature.
Sam
Hi Cris! Generally speaking with baking it’s a good idea/best practice to have all the ingredients be the same temperature, but… honestly I make this particular reicpe with cold buttermilk all the time without issue, so you’ll be fine if you use it straight from the fridge. Enjoy!
Cris
Thanks! Can’t wait to try this recipe.
Sandra L Efstathiou
can i use heavy cream or whipping cream if i dont have butter cream?
Sam
Hi Sandra! The heavy cream will work here. You may need a little bit more if the dough seems a little bit dry. Your biscuits won’t have quite the same depth of flavor though.
Barbara
These are delicious! I left out the sugar because, sugar. I was out of sharp cheddar, but I substituted Colby Jack. (That seemed the best of my available choices: Colby jack, parmesan, or goat cheese.) They were light, fluffy, and delicious. I know the cheesy goodness would have been more intense with extra sharp cheddar, but I have no complaints. Next time I will be sure to use the “correct” cheese, and I’ll probably swap in half whole wheat for the regular flour, but I was very pleased with these biscuits. Thanks!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy you liked them, Barbara! Be careful with using whole wheat flour in these biscuits–it can make them dry. You should be okay swapping half, but we wouldn’t do more than that. Enjoy! ❤️
Laurie
I used gluten free flour and made delicious biscuits for everyone to enjoy. They were a hit!
Alexandra
Absolutely loved them! can this recipe be doubled?
Sam
Yes, it doubles well! So glad you enjoyed, Alexandra! 🙂
Vanessa
We loved this recipe. I actually put in garlic salt instead of regular since we loved garlic, and it turned out perfect! So simple and easy!
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Vanessa! 🙂
Sandy
Loved it! in fact , love ALL your recipes so this was another easy and simply tasty one to follow to perfection 🙂 thank you!!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Sandy! 🙂
Sandy
This is awesome and so easy to make.
Nandana Santhosh
Ahhh!!!! Oh my god. I loved this. I have been baking using your recipes and I have to say that I was not surprised at how well this turned out. My mom couldn’t believe that the recipe didn’t have eggs or yeast. I cooked it for 20 minutes and it was perfect. I didn’t have garlic powder at home so I made some. Just wanted to say thank you for your wonderful recipes. I am so happy my friend asked me to check out your “Worst Chocolate Chip Cookie” recipe. That was a blessing!!
Sam
I am so glad you have enjoyed everything so much and I’m very happy to help get you through some tough times. 🙂
Shawn Brown
Hi Nandana,
You mentioned you didn’t have any garlic powder at home but that you made some. May I ask how you did that? Also you said you cooked it for 20 minutes when the recipe says 10 minutes. Why was that?
I love fresh garlic and always have some on hand. I’m just wondering if there’s a way I could incorporate fresh garlic into biscuits. I’m about to make this recipe so I probably won’t get your message before I do this but it’s still love any feedback, please.
Thank you, in advance!!
Miranda
We make these at least once every week! Love them so much and so easy!!
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoys them so much, Miranda! 🙂
Kamilla Nhim
Can I make the dough ahead of time and just place it in the fridge? Can’t wait to try this recipe!
Sam
Hi Kamilla! Since there is baking soda in this I would not recommend it. You can whisk all of the dry ingredients together in advance but I would not recommend putting it all together.