These homemade buttermilk biscuits are soft and buttery with hundreds of flaky layers. This biscuit recipe only requires 6 simple ingredients and they’re ready in about 35 minutes. I originally published this recipe in 2017, and it’s been a consistent reader (& personal!) favorite since.
One reader, Marcia, commented: “Finally, a biscuit recipe that worked for me. I especially appreciated the notes which, in fact, had me change some things I had been doing. The detail at all levels, both visual and written, is very helpful. ★★★★★“
Another reader, Maggie, commented: “One of my favorite biscuit recipes! They are so consistently flaky and delicious, every single time! ★★★★★“
Biscuits. Let’s do it BIG. Big as in mega flaky, mega fluffy, mega layers, mega golden brown, and mega buttery. It’s quite serendipitous that this “side dish” may taste even more remarkable than the main event. No, no… it WILL taste more remarkable. Just look at these buttery layers! Nothing can compete.
What are Biscuits?
The term “biscuits” has different meanings depending where you live in the world. In the U.S., biscuits are similar to a dinner roll, but are denser and flakier because they aren’t (typically) made with yeast. Since there’s usually no yeast involved and the rising agent is either baking soda, baking powder, or both—biscuits are considered a quick bread, like banana bread and no yeast bread. In other parts of the world, “biscuits” are more like cookies or scones.
6 Key Ingredients in Buttermilk Biscuits
You need just 6 basic ingredients for my homemade biscuits recipe:
- All-purpose Flour
- Baking Powder
- Salt
- Cold Butter
- Cold Buttermilk
- Honey
With so few ingredients, it’s important to reach for quality ingredients and avoid any substitutions. Notice the emphasis on cold? See tip #1 below.
Success Tips for the Best Homemade Biscuits
Let me share what I’ve learned in the world of homemade buttermilk biscuit recipes. I’ve made plenty of mistakes so you don’t have to. These tried-and-true tricks will turn your flat, dry biscuits into the best biscuits ever. And that’s a guarantee.
- Cold Fat: For flaky layers and pockets, use cold butter. When little pieces of butter melt as the biscuits bake, they release steam and create little pockets of air–this makes the biscuits airy and flaky on the inside while remaining crisp on the outside. It’s the same thing that happens when making these ham & cheese scones.
- Buttermilk & Honey for Flavor: Real buttermilk and teeny drizzle of honey balance out the salt. Buttermilk creates the most tender biscuit!
- Don’t Over Mix: Never overwork biscuit dough. Overworking and over-handling biscuit dough will result in tough, hard, and flat biscuits. Mix the ingredients together *just* until combined. Dough will be crumbly; that’s normal.
- Flatten & Fold Method: The most important step of all is folding the dough together. Turn the scrappy dough out onto a work surface and flatten it with your hands. Form into a rectangle. More below.
- Don’t Twist the Biscuit Cutter: When cutting the dough with a biscuit cutter, do not twist the cutter. Press the cutter down into the dough firmly. Twisting it will seal off the biscuit edges, preventing the biscuits from rising.
- Bake Close Together: Biscuits rise up nice and tall when they are touching, pressed snuggly against one another in the oven.
How to Fold Biscuit Dough
Flattening and folding biscuit dough creates multiple flaky layers, just as it does when we make homemade croissants, rough puff pastry, mille-feuille, and croissant bread. This step will take you no more than 2 minutes and you’ll be rewarded with the flakiest biscuits in the world. First, shape dough into a rectangle:
Then fold one side into the center:
Then the other side:
Turn the folded dough horizontal, gently flatten, and begin that folding process 2 more times.
The dough should be about 3/4 inch thick and the biscuits will rise as they bake.
Honey Butter Topping
The honey butter topping is optional, but it will set your biscuits apart from the rest. When the biscuits come out of the oven, brush with a mix of melted butter + honey. You use both ingredients in the biscuit dough, keeping the count at 6 ingredients total.
Serve your homemade biscuits with jam or homemade raspberry sauce, or biscuits and gravy—I love this particular recipe!
Biscuit Variations
I bake biscuits often, and use the same process and success tips when making all of my favorite variations including cheddar biscuits and everything bagel biscuits. I also make biscuit-topped vegetable pot pie and biscuit breakfast casserole. And you can absolutely turn these into dessert with my recipes for biscuit-topped berry cobbler and homemade strawberry shortcake!
I make these biscuits on almost a weekly basis, and what makes them a hit every single time, is the combination of very cold butter and buttermilk. Also, be sure to use the amount of baking powder in the recipe below, or try the baking powder and baking soda combination I explain in the recipe Note.
Bake the biscuits in a cast iron skillet, which helps the edges crisp up beautifully. Additionally, use a pastry brush to coat the tops of the biscuits with a little buttermilk before baking.
You can use a food processor to cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients, but if you do not own one, you can use a pastry cutter instead. A pastry cutter is an extremely helpful baking tool!
If you enjoy biscuits, try homemade ham & cheese scones and/or my easy no yeast cinnamon rolls.
Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits (Popular Recipe!)
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 8-10 biscuits
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These homemade buttermilk biscuits are soft and buttery with hundreds of flaky layers! This biscuit recipe only requires 6 simple ingredients and they’re ready in about 35 minutes.
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/2 cups (313g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more as needed for hands and work surface
- 2 Tablespoons aluminum free baking powder (yes, Tablespoons)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick; 113g) unsalted butter, cubed and very cold (see note)
- 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons (270ml) cold buttermilk, divided
- 2 teaspoons (14g) honey
- optional honey butter topping: 2 Tablespoons melted butter mixed with 1 Tablespoon honey
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C).
- Make the biscuits: Place the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl or in a large food processor. Whisk or pulse until combined. Add the cubed butter and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter or by pulsing several times in the processor. Cut/pulse until coarse crumbs form. See photo above for a visual. If you used a food processor, pour the mixture into a large bowl.
- Make a well in the center of the mixture. Pour 1 cup (240ml) buttermilk and drizzle honey on top. Fold everything together with a large spoon or spatula until it begins to come together. Do not overwork the dough. The dough will be shaggy and crumbly with some wet spots. See photo above for a visual.
- Pour the dough and any dough crumbles onto a floured work surface and gently bring together with generously floured hands. The dough will become sticky as you bring it together. Have extra flour nearby and use it often to flour your hands and work surface in this step. Using floured hands, flatten into a 3/4 inch thick rectangle as best you can. Fold one side into the center, then the other side on top. Turn the dough horizontally. Gently flatten into a 3/4 inch thick rectangle again. Repeat the folding again. Turn the dough horizontally one more time. Gently flatten into a 3/4 inch thick rectangle. Repeat the folding one last time. Flatten into the final 3/4 inch thick rectangle.
- Cut into 2.5 or 3-inch circles with a biscuit cutter. (Tip: Do not twist the biscuit cutter when pressing down into the dough because this seals off the edges of the biscuit which prevents them from fully rising.) Re-roll scraps until all the dough is used. You should have about 8-10 biscuits. Arrange in a 10-inch cast iron skillet (see note) or close together on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Make sure the biscuits are touching.
- Brush the tops with remaining buttermilk. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until tops are golden brown.
- Remove from the oven, and then brush warm tops with optional honey butter, and serve warm.
- Cover leftovers tightly and store at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Baked biscuits freeze well for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature or in the refrigerator, then warm up to your liking before serving. You can also freeze the biscuit dough. Prepare the dough in steps 2 through 4. Wrap up tightly in plastic wrap (plastic wrap is best for freshness) and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then continue with step 5. Also, after step 4, you can wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 2 days before continuing with step 5.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Pastry Cutter or Food Processor | 2.5- or 3-Inch Biscuit Cutter | 10-inch Cast Iron Skillet | Pastry Brush
- Baking Powder: To avoid a chemical aftertaste, make sure your baking powder is labeled aluminum free. I usually use Clabber Girl brand and though the ingredients state aluminum, I’ve never noticed an aluminum aftertaste. Alternatively, you can reduce the baking powder down to 1 Tablespoon and add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.
- Butter: Cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Keep butter as cold as possible until you need it. I recommend placing the cubed butter in the freezer for about 15 minutes before you begin.
- Buttermilk: You can substitute whole milk for buttermilk if desired. However if you’d like the tangy flavor, which I highly recommend, you can make your own sour milk substitute. Add 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice or white vinegar to a liquid measuring cup. Add enough milk to make 1 cup. (You need 1 cup in the recipe, plus 2 Tbsp for brushing–you can use regular milk to brush on top.) Whisk together, then let sit for 5 minutes before using in the recipe. Whole milk is best for the DIY sour milk substitute, though lower fat or nondairy milks work in a pinch. (In my testing, the biscuits don’t taste as rich or rise quite as tall using lower fat or nondairy milks.)
- Cast Iron Skillet: If your cast iron skillet isn’t well seasoned, I recommend greasing it with a little vegetable oil or melted butter. Brush a thin layer of either on the bottom and around the sides. No need to heat the cast iron skillet before using, though you certainly can. Place in the preheated oven for 15 minutes before arranging the shaped biscuits in it.
- Flavors: Try my flavorful biscuit variations: cheddar biscuits and everything bagel biscuits.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 biscuit
- Calories: 212
- Sugar: 2.4 g
- Sodium: 283.5 mg
- Fat: 9.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 27.5 g
- Protein: 4.1 g
- Cholesterol: 25.4 mg
Simple and perfect! I did not have aluminum free baking soda so I did the suggested mix with baking powder. Turned out great. Loved these.
OMFG where the F stands for FLUFFY! And FLAKY! Thanks for the helpful video, it gave me confidence to finally try biscuits and they are perfect.
The absolute best biscuits I have ever made. My family loved them.
Finally a biscuit recipe that I can do. Mine don’t look like Sally’s yet, but they are the best I’ve made so far! They are a lot like my grandmother’s, too, so it feels like a “home comfort” recipe. Thank you!
Soo easy. Soo delicious. Thanks for sharing.
These are the best biscuits I have ever had and made! Thank you!
I have learned so much from Sally’s Baking Addiction. A prime example is this recipe. I was attempting to make fluffy layered biscuits but they weren’t turning out right for some reason. Then I followed Sally’s biscuits and discovered I was overworking the dough and destroying the layers by using a rolling pin and also my butter wasn’t in the correct form. I now use a cheese grater to start with frozen butter (1 hour) and then refreeze the shredded butter and keep the butter frozen and then break it down into small chunks, freeze again. Do not overwork the dough. DO NOT OVERWORK THE DOUGH… DO… NOT… OVERWORK… THE… DOUGH. LOL. But seriously this is the easiest and most tasty buttery biscuit recipe you will ever have. Check out her other recipes for just about anything and you’ll walk away with a new piece of knowledge about cooking
These were a huge hit. I don’t have a pastry blender or food processor so I started out cutting in the butter with two knives like I do for pie crust… Then I got impatient and just rubbed the butter in with my fingers. And I put in too much buttermilk. And they were absolutely divine. I put them in top of a chicken pot pie, with a few on the side, and the next day I made another batch for strawberry shortcake. I anticipate these will be requested by my family often!
This will be my second time baking biscuits using this recipe. I am enjoying the easy of making biscuits but importantly I love love the results, taste and tenderness of these biscuits
Hello! I made this just now, and there is this stinging itchy sensation in the mouth when I eat it. Any idea what’s causing that?
Hi Karen, what brand of baking powder did you use? Was it aluminum free? If you decide to try the recipe again, see our baking powder note and use that recommended switch. (…reduce the baking powder down to 1 Tablespoon and add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.) Thank you for giving these a try!
These biscuits were wonderful and so easy to make. Didn’t add salt because I used salted butter. Chucking my other biscuit recipes.
I made this recipe today. Delicious!
Very great but I had a similar experience for a couple of bites. It was like a sour taste in a small spot. Is that the aluminum baking powder? Or did I not mix the ingredients well enough? Overall super good.
Hi, is there a response to this question? A few bites had a sour taste in a small spot. Is that the aluminum baking powder? Or did I not mix the ingredients well enough?
Hi Laura, that sounds like the aluminum in the baking powder.
These are the best biscuits ever
I have had troubles in the past making biscuits, this is a great recipe! My only change (I don’t have a food processor, so incorporating cold cubed butter would be very tedious) was to grate the butter from frozen, like Sally does with her scones.
This is easily the best biscuit recipe I’ve ever used. Followed it exactly and they came out perfectly. Thank you!!!
They turned out amazing! My family loved them! I made my own buttermilk, in this recipe.
I tried this recipe for my husband this morning and it made the best biscuits ever! I halved the recipe because I don’t eat biscuits, they seem to sit in my stomach like a rock but I ate 2 of these! And I would’ve eaten more if there were any left! They’re so light and tender! I went into my recipe file and deleted all the other biscuit recipes I had. This is the only one I’ll make from now on. Thank you so much!
I used this recipe several times when i have leftover buttermilk, and made this tonight with chili, such a big hit, so good! We also love your scone recipes. Thank you
Sally, Another awesome recipe. I think I could make these for supper every night of the week. ,y mother-in-law used to make our family’s standard-setting biscuits; now, I do. 😉 Thanks!
I love your recipes…they have changed the way I cook and have made cooking so much less stressful and enjoyable❣️ If you don’t have honey on hand can you substitute something? We are under a weather advisory for the cold so going to the grocery store is out of the question Thank you again Sally!!
Hi Sarah! You can use the same amount of regular sugar instead.
Finally! A recipe and techniques I can use for successful biscuits!
I omitted the sugar the second time I made these. My Kentucky born mother did not include sugar in her biscuits or cornbread.
Thank you for helping me recreate a wonderful food memory of growing up eating delicious biscuits in my mom’s kitchen.
I’m “teaching” my grandkids’ homeschooling group and thought of making biscuits and showing them the importance of that little ingredient (BP) and what happens when we don’t add that. However, I’d love to have a couple pans ready to pop in oven while they are using pastry cutter and bowl to mix theirs. How long can the premade (unbaked) biscuits set out prior to baking? (It’s an hour drive from my house) and I will have premade the dough and cut them the night before. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE
Hi Mel, you can refrigerate the pre-cut biscuits overnight. If you have a way to keep them cool during the drive, that would be best. You don’t want the butter in the biscuits to get too warm before baking. Hope they’re a hit!
I used homemade cultured butter. It retains its shape a lot longer than store-bought butters. Store-bought butters are designed specifically to become softer faster in warmer temps because people were complaining that real butter isn’t as “user friendly,” so the manufacturers now design butter to be creamy, spreadable on demand. Also, though, homemade cultured butter and homemade cultured buttermilk in a biscuit? Divine.
This recipe is my go-to for biscuits. Not as flaky as Pillsbury (one day I’ll figure out how they do it), but these are very light and fluffy.
Would this work with King Arthur gluten-free flour?
Hi Andrea, we haven’t tested that substitution, so we’re unsure of the exact results. Let us know if you do give it a try.
Can a whole wheat version work here?
Hi Al, we haven’t tested these biscuits with whole wheat flour so can’t offer much advice. The texture will change. Let us know if you give it a try!
Recipe is a keeper! My 1st time ever making biscuits and I appreciate all the photos and detailed notes. I used a pastry cutter and bob’s red mill baking powder. Next time I’ll use a 3” cutter bc I ended up with 12 petite biscuits using the 2.5.”
I love all of your recipies. But, I’m on a kidney diet and found if I use salted butter and 2:1 (cream of tarter + baking soda), the sodium is reduced to 200 mg instead of 283!
I am throwing out my old recipe for biscuits after making these high rising, delicious beauties! These are the best biscuits ever!
Hi! How do I re-roll the scraps of dough without ruining the lamination? Thanks!
Hi C Dub, just be as careful as possible to not overwork the scraps as best you can.
I followed this recipe exactly and it made about 15 biscuits. The biscuits are not lightweight in the middle nor are they too dense. They separate well into layers to add butter or jam. I will definitely make these again.
Can I use salted butter and just not use any salt when I whisk the other dry ingredients together?
Hi Irene, if using salted butter, reduce down the added salt to 3/4 teaspoon.