These tender and flaky Gruyère Biscuits with Bacon and Chives are packed full of flavor with the addition of nutty Gruyère cheese, crispy bacon, and bright chives.
I love making Buttermilk Biscuits and slipping a piece of ham inside, or loading them up with bacon and scrambled eggs and making a sandwich, but these Gruyère Biscuits with Bacon and Chives have all the flavor I'm looking for, all wrapped up in the flaky layers.
I like to add mix-ins to my biscuits, as in my Ham and Swiss version, kind of like a savory scone. Unlike most scones, American biscuits use buttermilk. This ingredient not only tenderizes the biscuits, but it reacts with baking soda to add to their magnificent rise. Wanna make some cheese biscuits? Let's go!
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Ingredients
Nothing out of the ordinary here. Basic delicious cheese biscuit with the works ingredients.
See recipe card for quantities.
Substitutions
I want you to make biscuits all the time. Here's some ways to make that happen if your pantry is lacking.
- Butter - I always prefer to use unsalted butter so that I'm in control of the saltiness of my food, but if you only have salted butter, just use half the kosher salt called for in the recipe.
- Buttermilk - I prefer full fat, whole milk buttermilk, but low fat is fine. If you don't have access to buttermilk you can add 1 tablespoon vinegar or fresh lemon juice to a measuring cup and then pour in whole milk to add up to amount needed for this recipe. I have not tried biscuits with alternative milk, but if you do, let me know how it goes!
- Kosher salt - When I say Kosher salt I am not talking about the table salt in the blue container with the umbrella toting little girl. Due to their crystal size and other factors, table salts actually taste much saltier than kosher salt. If you only have table salt, use ½ of the amount called for.
Variations
Biscuits are your culinary playground and can be customized to whatever inspiration or ingredients you have.
- Spicy - Add a ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper to your dry ingredients to give a spicy kick to your biscuits.
- Cheddar - I already have a great Cheddar Biscuit recipe on the blog, but you can substitute it for the Gruyère here as well.
- Meat free - No one is going to make you use bacon here. More for meeee 😍
- Small batch - Follow the instructions in my Small Batch Biscuit recipe, halving the bacon, gruyere, and chive amounts.
Instructions
The instructions are the same as for all my biscuit recipes - simple, straightforward, and fun! Your biscuit skills will improve every time you make these, and I even have food processor instructions in the Frequently Asked Questions section. So I guess you're gonna be a biscuit person now!
Combine all dry ingredients and add cold cubed butter. Toss the butter to coat in the dry ingredients.
Using your fingers, smash the butter into pieces, combining it with the flour in small and larger flat pieces and some chunks.
Add cheese, chopped bacon, and chopped chives and toss to combine.
Add buttermilk and, using a danish dough whisk or spatula, mix until you have a shaggy dough. It will look dry at the bottom, and that's okay. It will come together in the next step.
Dump the dough onto a lightly floured counter. Gather into a rough square and, using a bench scraper or knife, cut into four pieces. Stack them on top of each other and smash back down. Repeat two more times.
Roll out to about ½ inch thick and cut into 9 squares. Place on a parchment lined pan and place in freezer while you preheat the oven to 450°F.
Brush with an egg wash and bake at 450°F for 15 to 18 minutes, or until golden brown and crispy and the aroma is intoxicating.
Serve warm. Maybe top with in some creamy Scrambled Eggs, and a little more Gruyère cheese and chives. Share if you want to. Or don't.
Expert tip: frozen butter
Everyone goes on and on about using frozen butter and grating it in with a box grater or food processor, but I find that too fussy and frankly, I just don't want to dirty another thing that I'll have to wash. Also, unless you have a dangerous fever, I don't believe you can actually melt butter in the time it takes you to work it into the flour with your hands.
I find that just giving your cut biscuits 15 minutes in the freezer while the oven preheats takes care of all of the worry about whether your butter is frozen or not. No extra dishes and flaky biscuits, all with the power of your fingers. You are magic!
Recipe FAQ's
Absolutely, I do this all the time. Measure all of your dry ingredients into the bowl of your food processor. Pulse a few times to mix. Add cold butter to the dry ingredients and pulse 5 to 6 times, or until most of the butter is in pea sized or smaller pieces. Pour into a mixing bowl and proceed with the rest of the recipe.
Of course! Using a biscuit or cookie cutter, cut out your biscuits. Do not twist the cutter when cutting them out! That would seal the edges of the biscuits, keeping them from fully rising. Just press straight down and lift straight up.
Gather your scraps as you go and gently re-stack them together, press out to ½ inch, and cut as many biscuits as you can. Place cut biscuits on a parchment paper lined sheet pan and place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes before baking.
Keep biscuits on the counter in an airtight container for up to 3 days. As if.
Wrap biscuits in aluminum foil and heat in a preheated 350°F oven for 10 minutes. Open the foil and allow to crisp a bit for 5 minutes.
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Gruyère Biscuits with Bacon and Chives
Ingredients
- 2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter very cold and cut into small cubes
- 1 cup (113 g) Gruyère cheese shredded
- 3 strips bacon cooked and chopped
- ¼ cup (12 g) chives chopped
- ¾ cup (210 g) + 2 tablespoons buttermilk very cold
- 1 large egg whisked with 1 tbs water, for egg wash
Instructions
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 450°F. In a mixing bowl, whisk together all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt.
- Toss cold butter cubes into the dry ingredients and, using a pastry cutter or your fingers, squeeze, pinch, and mix in the cold butter until you have a mixture of flat pieces and crumbly pea sized bits of butter mixed into the flour.
- Food processor instructions: Place cubed butter in the freezer for 10-15 minutes while you get all your other ingredients together. Measure all of your dry ingredients into the bowl of your food processor. Pulse a few times to mix.Add chilled butter to the dry ingredients and pulse 5 to 6 times, or until most of the butter is in pea sized, or smaller, pieces. Pour into a mixing bowl and proceed with the rest of the instructions.
- Add Gruyère cheese, chopped bacon, and chopped chives to your flour/butter mixture and toss to distribute evenly.
- Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the cold buttermilk. Using a danish dough whisk, or a large silicone spatula, mix the wet and dry ingredients together until you have a fairly uniform, loose dough. The flour won't look all mixed in and that's okay. It will come together.
- Dump the butter/dry ingredient mix out onto a lightly floured surface. Using your hands, gently press everything together into a rough square.
- With a bench scraper or knife, cut into four smaller squares. Stack the pieces of biscuit dough on top of each other. Smush it all down into a square again. Repeat this cutting and stacking procedure 2 more times, for a total of 3. Pat or roll the dough into a rectangle at least ½ inch thick.
- Using your bench scraper or a knife, cut into square biscuits and place on a parchment paper lined sheet pan. Place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes before baking.
- Remove biscuits from the freezer and brush the tops with an egg wash made of one egg whisked with one tablespoon of water. Sprinkle with flaky salt, if desired.
- Bake in a 450° oven for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. Eat warm.
Notes
- To ensure that all of your square biscuits rise evenly, use a sharp knife to remove ¼ inch from all sides to open up the layers. You can bake those scraps on the edges of the sheet pan. Chef’s treat!
- For round biscuits: Using a biscuit or cookie cutter, cut out your biscuits. Do not twist the cutter when cutting them out! That would seal the edges of the biscuits, keeping them from fully rising. Just press straight down and lift straight up. Gather your scraps as you go and gently re-stack them together, press out to ½ inch, and cut as many biscuits as you can. Place cut biscuits on a parchment paper lined sheet pan and place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes before baking.
Nutrition
The nutritional and caloric information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It does not assert or suggest that readers should or should not count calories, and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s or doctor’s counseling.
Andie says
Hi! I love this recipe and have made it once before, but I was wondering if I could freeze the biscuits at any part of the process and continue it later if I don't have enough time?
Thank you!
Cynthia says
Absolutely! Just like with my large batch freezer biscuits, you can make these ahead and then freeze them for later.
Place biscuits on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and place in freezer until hard. Transfer to a zip top bag labelled with baking instructions. Freeze for up to 3 months.