Easy Southern Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe
Say “goodbye” to tough biscuits that taste like hockey pucks. These southern-style buttermilk biscuits are made from scratch with only three simple ingredients, and the results are light biscuits ready for strawberry jam, ham, or whatever biscuit toppings and fillings you like.
If you have half an hour, you can make a batch of these classic 3-ingredient biscuits from scratch.
Ingredients
The first thing you need to do is to gather your ingredients. The French call this mise en place. You need the following three items:
- 2 ½ cups of self-rising flour
- 6 tablespoons of cold butter
- 1 cup of buttermilk
How To Make These Homestyle Biscuits
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. You can line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use an ungreased baking sheet.
- Place the flour in a large mixing bowl and add the butter, cut into cubes. Using a pastry cutter or forks, “cut” the butter cubes into pea-size pieces or coarse crumbs. It helps to coat the butter in a little flour when doing this. Alternatively, you can place the flour and butter in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the butter is pea-sized.
- Add buttermilk to the flour and butter, then mix well with a spoon. The mixture will be “sticky.”
- Sprinkle a work surface with flour, then place your dough on it. Form the flour mixture into a cohesive ball, then pat it into a circle or rectangle about an inch thick. There’s no need to pull out your rolling pin to roll the dough like it’s a pie crust.
- Cut out the biscuits from the dough. The number of biscuits you get will vary depending on the size of the biscuit cutter – or cup- that you use. If you use a 2 1/2-inch biscuit cutter, you might get 8-10 biscuits. If you use a 3-inch biscuit cutter, you will get fewer biscuits.
I like to use a drinking glass. You can dip the open end in a little flour to help prevent sticking. When you are finished, rinse it off, then put it in the dishwasher to clean.
I get about 9 biscuits out of a batch of dough.
Place the cut biscuits on a prepared baking sheet or baking stone. Be sure to leave a couple of inches of space between the biscuits. You don’t want them to bake together.
- Bake them in the preheated oven for 11-12 minutes. Carefully remove them when they have a nice, golden top. Brush biscuits with butter while they are still warm. Store leftover biscuits at room temperature.
If homemade biscuits make your heart (and stomach) happy, you’ll love these other biscuit recipes, too. Try Biscuits and Gravy for the ultimate Southern breakfast, or whip up a batch of Butter Swim Biscuits for a rich, golden twist. Craving restaurant-style flavor? My Red Lobster Biscuit Copycat doesn’t disappoint. And if you’re out of buttermilk, my Biscuits Made Without Buttermilk will save the day without sacrificing taste.
Southern Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups self-rising flour plus additional 1/4 cup for dusting the work surface
- 6 Tablespoons cold butter
- 1 cup buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. You can line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use an ungreased baking sheet.
- Place approximately 1 cup of flour in food processor. Cut butter into pieces and add to flour. Pulse until butter is in pea-sized pieces. Combine mixture with additional 1 ½ cup of flour.
- Add buttermilk and mix with a spoon. Mixture will be "sticky."
- Sprinkle a work surface with flour, then place your dough on it. Form the flour mixture into a cohesive ball, then pat it into a circle or rectangle about an inch thick. There’s no need to pull out your rolling pin to roll the dough like it’s a pie crust.
- Cut with biscuit cutter (or drinking end of cup). Place biscuits on a baking sheet.
- Bake for 11-12 minutes or until golden brown.
Nutrition
If you’re from the South, these will probably remind you of your grandma’s buttermilk biscuits. All you need now is some red-eye or cocoa (chocolate) gravy to top them with. Of course, they are always great with sausage gravy.
FAQs
Absolutely! You can freeze uncooked biscuit dough. Simply follow the directions through step number 3. However, instead of baking them, place them in the freezer for 3-4 hours. Once they are frozen solid, remove them from the baking sheet and put them in a freezer-ziplock bag.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove the desired number of frozen biscuits and place them on a baking sheet. Bake for 22-24 minutes or until golden.
These fluffy southern buttermilk biscuits can be stored in an airtight container like a freezer bag for a couple of days – if you have any that last that long.
If you don’t have self-rising flour on hand, don’t worry. Here is a handy recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour: Place 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 ½ tablespoons baking powder, and enough all-purpose flour to fill up a one-cup measuring cup.
For this recipe, you double those ingredients: 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3 tablespoons baking powder, plus enough flour to total 2 cups, along with an extra 1/4 cup of flour.
You can make a simple sour milk substitute by placing a tablespoon of vinegar in a measuring cup and adding whole milk until the mixture reaches the 1-cup mark. Stir and let it sit for 10 minutes so that the milk will “sour.”
Alternatively, you can use fresh lemon juice to make sour milk. Just follow the above directions, but use 1 tablespoon of lemon juice instead of vinegar.
Shortcuts and Tips
I like to take shortcuts when I can and for these homemade buttermilk biscuits, I use my food processor to incorporate butter into the flour mixture. It is much easier than a fork, knife, or pastry blender. Simply pulse butter in flour a few times until the pieces are the size of peas.
Another option for getting small pieces of butter is to use a cheese grater. You want the butter to be really cold. Freeze a stick of butter for 10-15 minutes for the best results.
However, I discovered that an even easier way to make them is to use melted butter. Yep. That’s right. Melted butter.
You see, when you pour COLD buttermilk over melted butter, it often causes the butter to re-harden. Just stir the buttermilk, melted butter, and flour together as you pour in the buttermilk. A shaggy dough forms initially; stir a little more, knead it a bit, and then roll it out.
Last Bite
Did you bake these Southern-style biscuits? I’d love to know how they turned out! Share your biscuit success (or creative twist) in the comments below, and tag @southernkissedblog when you post your buttery masterpieces on social media. If you enjoyed this recipe, don’t forget to pin it or share it with a fellow biscuit lover!
I imported Southern soft wheat self rising flour to my Northern home and the biscuits came out twice their height and vey fluffy. One thing, the ingredients list says 2 ½ c flour plus more for work surface, but the food processor directions only have two cups listed. I just added more until it was handle-able.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I have corrected that error and appreciate you brining it to my attention. I hope you enjoyed your biscuits!
My bisquits were flat and were like hockey pucks. whats wrong. i followed recipe.
Could your self-rising flour been out-of-date? The leavening agents in it could have been too old and caused it to not rise properly.
I also didn’t have much luck with the rising, I added the baking powder to my flour to make the self rising flour
I made these this morning, they tasted great but they didnt rise very much. Have any ideas on what I did wrong?
Hi, I am glad they tasted great. Any idea of how old your self-rising flour is? If it is too old, perhaps the leavener has lost some of its oompf.
Can you freeze these before baking?
That’s a great question and I have wondered that myself. I imagine that you can, then bake them the way you would any other frozen biscuit dough.
These look WONDERFUL! I make scones all the time, but have yet to try buttermilk biscuits! YUM!
Hi, kindly display a chart how many calories these southern buttermilk biscuits carry.
Reply
Thanks
That would all depend on how large or small your biscuit cutter is.
Yummy! I like them hot out of the oven with butter and then take Golden Eagle table syrup, pour it on plate, mix in more butter and sop it up with a hot biscuit! Excuse me, I need a moment alone. 🙂
Honey is also good with butter and then sop it up with those biscuits……OH MY WORD
I love biscuits warm from the oven, usually just with butter. But they are good with almost anything on them.
Talk about delicious! I think Southern style biscuits are really the only way biscuits should be baked. YUM!
I’ve never made biscuits from scratch. These looks mouthwatering!
These look so wonderfully fluffy and buttery!
I made biscuits last week too! I was truly surprised at how simple the recipe was to follow. My kids love them!
Off to see what other yumminess I can find on your blog. 😉
~ Ashley
These look amazing! And so simple to make! I pinned them so I can try them asap!
Your recipe is correct and very good!!!
We use White Lily Flour down heer (southern
for here) where I’m from. If you can get it, it’s a soft
wheat flour that you will really love.
You did good!!!
Thank you!