Our Favorite Buttermilk Biscuits

Buttermilk biscuits are a staple of Southern cuisine for excellent reason; these flaky, airy, and buttery pastries are considered a heritage food of the region, and every family has their own recipe for biscuits, many of which are passed down from generation to generation.

After baking hundreds of buttermilk biscuit recipes, our Test Kitchen landed on this winning recipe for Our Favorite Buttermilk Biscuits. This no-fail biscuit recipe will make you look like a pro, even if this is your first attempt at biscuit-making.

The instructions below are precise for a reason and should be followed as written. When we say to stir the dough 15 times, we mean it! When rolling out the dough, don't press down too hard or overwork the dough. This will give the biscuits a dense, tough texture.

Learn how to make buttermilk biscuits, and you'll be a biscuit pro in no time.

Ingredients for Buttermilk Biscuit

Buttermilk biscuits don't require a pantry's worth of baking ingredients. Instead, most recipes only call for flour, baking powder and/or baking soda, butter, buttermilk, and salt. Our buttermilk biscuit recipe is likewise streamlined. Here's what you'll need:

• Self-rising flour: This is a great "shortcut" ingredient. It already has the leaveners you need for flaky, tall biscuits, plus salt. But if you don't have any, you can turn all-purpose flour into self-rising flour.
• Unsalted butter: Cold (frozen, actually) butter stays solid while you mix up the biscuit dough. This way, when the biscuits are baking, the butter melts, evaporates, and releases steam, creating the flaky layers you crave. You'll also need some butter to brush on the biscuits as soon as they come out of the oven.
• Chilled buttermilk: The tang of buttermilk makes these biscuits extra savory. The buttermilk also reacts with the leaveners in the flour to make for fluffier, more tender biscuits.
  

Why Buttermilk Makes Such Great Biscuits

Buttermilk has a specific and valuable effect on biscuits, both in terms of their flavor and their texture. "The acidity in the buttermilk reacts with the leavening [in the self-rising flour], giving the biscuits maximum lift. Buttermilk also tenderizes the gluten, making for a softer, less tough biscuit. It also tastes great!" insists executive pastry chef Jen Yee of Hopkins & Company Hospitality in Atlanta.

In terms of flavor, chef/owner Edward Lee of 610 Magnolia in Louisville, Kentucky says that "buttermilk delivers the slightly tart flavor that adds to the complexity of the biscuit."

How To Make Buttermilk Biscuits

First and foremost, remember that "biscuits are best made quickly by hand," according to Lee. The process shouldn't be overly complicated or time-consuming; just follow the instructions and the timing listed in the recipe, and you'll be all set.

• Step 1. Start by freezing butter. It takes a few hours to freeze, so work that into your set-up plans before you start making the biscuits. When you're ready to bake, get a stick from the freezer, and use the large holes of a box grater to grate the butter.
• Step 2. Then toss the grated butter with the flour in a medium-sized bowl. Put the bowl in the fridge, and allow it to chill for 10 minutes.
• Step 3. Once the dough has chilled, remove it from the fridge, make a well at the center of the dough, and add the buttermilk. Use a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula to stir the dough 15 times; this number of stirs incorporates the buttermilk without over-mixing. If the dough is sticky at the end of this step, then you're on the right track.
• Step 4. Sprinkle enough flour over your counter to give it a light coating, then turn the dough out onto it, lightly dusting the top of the dough with more flour.
• Step 5. Next, rub a light layer of flour onto a rolling pin and use the pin to roll the dough into a 9" x 5" rectangle that's 3/4" thick. Fold the dough in half (short end to short end) and roll into another 9" x 5" rectangle. Repeat four more times.
• Step 6. At the end of the fourth rollout (you should have a 9" x 5" rectangle), roll the rectangle one more time until it's 1/2" thick. Use a round cutter (2 1/2" is a good size—make sure that you flour it!) to cut the dough into as many biscuits as you can.
• Step 7. Place the dough rounds on a jelly roll pan lined with parchment paper (or greased with butter).
• Step 8. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the biscuits develop a light-brown color.
• Step 9. Remove the biscuits from the oven and, while they're still warm, brush them with melted butter.
  

What To Serve With Buttermilk Biscuits

Buttermilk biscuits are among the most versatile breads that you can serve; they're just as good with savory toppings as they are with sweet, and they fit seamlessly into any meal at any time of day. A few of our favorite ways to serve these biscuits include:

• Biscuits and gravy: Buttermilk biscuits make a perfect vehicle for rich sausage gravy. To turn this into a brunch classic, add a serving of scrambled or poached eggs.
• Homemade preserves: Fruit jams and preserves bring both sweetness and a hint of acidity, which makes for a beautiful flavor combination on top of buttermilk biscuits (which also have a slightly tangy taste, thanks to the buttermilk). Try our recipes for Pear Preserves, Strawberry Lemonade Jam, or even the more savory Tomato Jam.
• Fried chicken: Slicing a buttermilk biscuit in half, laying a piece of fried chicken down on one piece, adding a swipe of honey and a pat of butter, and topping it with the other piece of biscuit is a classic Southern meal, and our recipe for Mama's Fried Chicken will set you up for a sandwich masterpiece.

How To Store Buttermilk Biscuits

It's best to eat biscuits on the day that you bake them. The quality decreases as the biscuit sits out. That said, if you don't have the bandwidth to consume a whole batch of biscuits in one day, store them in an airtight container up to 48 hours. Avoid storing the biscuits in the fridge; they'll turn hard.

Can I Freeze Buttermilk Biscuits?

While biscuits don't have a long shelf life at room temperature (and shouldn't go in the fridge), they can be stored in the freezer. To keep baked biscuits in the freezer, pack them in a freezer-safe container or zip-top bag, and store for up to 90 days.

As an alternative, you can freeze extra dough before baking. Cut the dough into rounds, freeze on a baking pan until solid. Then, move to an airtight, freezer-safe container or ziploack bag, and store up to one month. Bake from frozen, adding a few minutes to the total bake time until they're golden brown.

Tips for Making the Best Buttermilk Biscuits

As simple as it may be, baking buttermilk biscuits can benefit from some hard-earned advice from the Test Kitchen:

• Keep the butter cold: We've already explained the importance of cold butter for biscuits, but it's worth repeating. Room-temperature butter won't release the same amount of steam, so you won't get the flaky layers that most biscuit enthusiasts crave. Putting butter in the freezer keeps it as cold as possible before the baking process begins, and because frozen butter also has a more solid texture, it becomes far easier to grate (and easier to mix with flour).
• Don't overhandle the dough: Tempting though it may be to knead the dough again and again with your hands, resist that urge. Using your fingers to handle the dough will cause the butter to warm up, reducing its textural effectiveness. Plus, overworked dough is more prone to breakage and crumbling, so the biscuits won't have the structural appeal that they should. Stick with a spoon or spatula for mixing the dough, and don't go beyond 15 stirs.
• Don't twist the biscuit cutter. When you're cutting biscuit rounds from the dough, press down and lift back up without twisting the cutter. Twisting it can "seal" the edges of the biscuits, and they won't rise properly.

Editorial contributions by Taylor Tobin.