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The Best Basic Biscuits

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If you’re a yankee going to a southern potluck…for the love of all things good and sweet in this world. Don’t bring biscuits.

This biscuit recipe is so basic you'll want to whip them up for anything from biscuits and gravy to fried chicken and everything in between! Spice up these biscuits by adding savory ingredients!

Unless, of course, you have this recipe. 😉

Biscuits So Easy, Even A Yankee Can Make Them

Here in the south, we know biscuits.  We defer clam chowder to New England, Tex-Mex to the southwest, and coffee to the northwest but down in the Bible belt, we got biscuits covered.  We’re like this with biscuits.

And since you can’t see me I’m holding up my crossed fingers right now.

So when you find a biscuit recipe so perfect even a Yankee can recreate it, you want to climb up on the nearest rooftop and shout it to the world!  Even a Yankee needs a good biscuit, y’all.  And these biscuits are more than good.  They’re light, flaky, and they’ll knock your socks off in no time flat!

This biscuit recipe is so basic you'll want to whip them up for anything from biscuits and gravy to fried chicken and everything in between! Spice up these biscuits by adding savory ingredients!

I mean just look at all those flaky layers just ready to hold little puddles of salty, melted butter.

If you’ve ever been served a biscuit from a can with its gummy consistency or a “biscuit” that more closely resembles a flaky roll then you know the struggle. Bless my roommate but she’s from Michigan and her biscuits have a crunchy outside and soft inside but they lack the layers that catch the butter river so perfectly.

And that sucks.

This biscuit recipe is so basic you'll want to whip them up for anything from biscuits and gravy to fried chicken and everything in between! Spice up these biscuits by adding savory ingredients!

Best Things to Add to Basic Biscuits

The best part of a good base biscuit recipe is the number of things you can add to it to change the flavor. Cheddar, bacon, parmesan, ham, rosemary. If you’d eat it in a roll put it in a biscuit and you won’t be sorry.

Should you use salted or unsalted butter in biscuits? 

I use salted butter in this recipe and it’s still not too salty, which is perfection.  A good southern biscuit is basic because we do things like slather it with jelly or smother it in gravy.  Because everything tastes good when you drown it in gravy.

Or bring it to a potluck.

Meaghan

This biscuit recipe is so basic you'll want to whip them up for anything from biscuits and gravy to fried chicken and everything in between! Spice up these biscuits by adding savory ingredients!

The Best Basic Biscuits

Yield: 2 dozen
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 14 minutes
Total Time: 24 minutes

Ingredients

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 Tbs baking powder
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 stick of salted butter
  • 1 ½ cups milk

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and add flour, baking powder, and salt to a large bowl.
  2. Cut cold butter into flour using a pastry cutter, fork, or your fingers until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
  3. Stir in milk until dough comes together.
  4. Add in extra ingredients like bacon, cheese, etc if desired.
  5. Pat out biscuits to ¾ inch thickness and cut with a 2 inch circle cutter. Pressing straight down when you cut will help the biscuits rise better.
  6. Place biscuits on a sheet pan with the sides touching and refrigerate for 20 minutes before baking.*
  7. Bake at 450 degrees for 10-14 minutes or until biscuits are baked through and golden brown on top.

Notes

Refrigerating the cut biscuits for 20 minutes drops the temperature of the butter after its been handled and results in lighter, flakier biscuits.

More Baking Recipes

These biscuits are so easy that they are the perfect gateway food. Once you bake them from scratch, you’ll be more confident in your baking skills. Here are some more easy baking recipes for you to try next. 

Eileen

Wednesday 10th of January 2024

10/10 Super easy! The recipe turned out great, and I’m going to make them again soon! They were gone in two days, and I made 30!

Laura

Sunday 15th of January 2023

This is the only biscuit recipe I use now. Thank you!

Sally Tieso

Monday 6th of September 2021

I really have lost track of how many times I've made these??? I cooked a turkey yesterday so I could use the leftovers to make creamed turkey over biscuits! The relatives should be here soon and they look dang good!!

Dolores

Tuesday 17th of November 2020

Amazing recipe! I used heavy whipping cream instead of milk. My family enjoyed them. Thanks so much for sharing 😊

Kit Cohn

Saturday 18th of April 2020

This is a simple and wonderful recipe. I’m happy I found it! The ONLY thing I changed was folding the dough and pressing it down and refolding it before using the biscuit cutter. This resulted in sky high fluffy layers. I’m curious though, if you’d recommend freezing the unbaked dough for made-ahead time saving?

Meaghan

Monday 20th of April 2020

I'm so happy you love it! I usually freeze these already baked but you could certainly freeze them unbaked as well. Just add a few minutes onto the baking time if you bake from frozen.

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