These Quick and Easy Biscuits come together in no time, thanks to your food processor. No need for a mixing bowl or cutting in butter by hand — let your food processor do the work, and you’ll be tucking into these fluffy buttermilk biscuits in under 30 minutes!
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You guys know that I'm always looking for a way to make Quick and Easy Biscuits. But like a lot of people who are getting older, or who have hand mobility issues, or just don't want to fuss, using your hands or a pastry cutter to cut in the butter or simply mixing the dough in a bowl can be a lot. I love my flaky buttermilk biscuits, and my cream biscuits are a low-fuss dream, but sometimes I just don't want to work even that hard.
Enter my food processor! I had already been making the crusts for my apple galette and pear galette in my food processor, and I thought "why can't I do that with biscuit dough?" With minimal ingredients and just a few simple steps, you’re going to have warm, homemade biscuits that are perfect for breakfast and brunch, or as a side for dinner.
This quick food processor technique makes things so much easier, while still giving you a fluffy and delicious biscuit. It’s not completely mistake-proof - if you're not careful you could work the dough too much or add too much buttermilk (just scoop them like my drop biscuits) . But if you measure correctly, and follow my instructions, you can make amazingly fluffy biscuits quickly with the help of your food processor.
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Ingredients & Substitutions
Gosh how I love not having to buy special ingredients to make delicious biscuits! Let's go over a couple of the ingredients and how you can adjust if you need to:
- All-purpose flour - I generally use King Arthur Flour, but for basic biscuits any store brand will do the trick. If you have leftover self-rising flour (from making my easy english muffins or two ingredient bagels) you can use that here and skip adding the salt and baking powder.
- Buttermilk - I use a full fat buttermilk, but low fat is fine. If you want to make a food processor version of my milk biscuits you can use regular milk and leave out the baking soda. You can also use a low fat milk, but if you want the best biscuits, I wouldn't recommend nonfat.
- Butter - I always use unsalted butter because there is no standard for salt content across brands and therefore I can't control how salty something is. By using unsalted butter I'm in charge, and you know I like to be the boss of everything. If you only have salted butter, just don't add additional salt. Because this is a hands-off scratch biscuit recipe, and we chill the biscuits after cutting, there's no need to use frozen butter, which is good because I never remember to freeze any.
- Egg - I usually use an egg whisked with one tablespoon of water to brush on the tops of the biscuits before baking, but this time, since we are going low-fuss, I just brushed them with more buttermilk. The egg wash is optional.
See recipe card at the bottom of this post for full recipe.
Instructions
This easy homemade biscuit recipe comes together literally in seconds. You will spend more time cutting your cold butter into cubes than you will mixing the dough.
Step 1: Measure your all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and kosher salt into the bowl of your food processor. Add cubes of cold butter.
Step 2: Pulse the ingredients for 3 one second pulses, or as we say in America for three Mississippi's (1 Mississippi-2 Mississippi-3 Mississippi). Your flour mixture and butter should be comprised of coarse crumbs and a bit larger than pea-sized pieces of butter.
Step 3: Turn the food processor on while slowly pouring ¾ cup (180 grams) of buttermilk in through the opening on the top for another 3 Mississippi's.
Step 4: Stop as soon as the dough forms a ball.
Step 5: Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.
Step 6: Use a rolling pin or your hands to roll or press the dough out to about a ½ to ¾ inch thick rectangle.
Step 7: Use a 2 inch cutter, a cookie or biscuit cutter, or any sharp-edged cutter to cut out biscuits. Gather together your scraps and cut out as many biscuits as you can.
Step 8: Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and put into the fridge or freezer while you preheat your oven to 450°F. Brush the tops with a little more buttermilk or an egg wash. Add flaky sea salt to the tops, if you like.
Final step: Bake at 450°F for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before enjoying with more butter, some honey, or by slicing it open and sliding in a piece of ham.
I love a sandwich The texture of these biscuits is absolutely perfect for making a sandwich that doesn't fall apart when you bite in. Try my Sausage Egg and Cheese Biscuits and see for yourself!
Expert tip: Measuring
A food scale is my best friend in the kitchen, ensuring that my baking recipes come out the same every time. Although I grew up using measuring cups and tablespoons, the rest of the world did not. Besides, using a measuring cup can be wildly inaccurate as everyone scoops up their ingredients differently. How much you can fit into a measuring cup might be completely different from one scoop to the next.
If you don't have a kitchen scale (you can get one for as little as $10 online), make sure to measure carefully to achieve the best results. Don't just shove your cup into the flour as this can result in you getting wildly varying amounts of flour (experiment and see for yourself). Instead, use a spoon to lift your ingredients, such as flour, lightly into the measuring cup and then scrape off the excess with a straight edge, such as a bench scraper or knife.
Serving suggestions
These easy biscuits are great for making Country Eggs Benedict, topping a Breakfast Casserole, or splitting open and using for Strawberry Shortcake. All good choices IMHO, but my absolute hands-down favorite way to eat biscuits is to cover them in creamy country gravy or rich sausage gravy.
Recipe FAQs
Depending on how thick I roll the dough, and the size of my biscuit cutter, I can get up to 12 biscuits, but the average is 8 to 10. If you want big 4 inch cathead biscuits, you can get about 6 with this recipe.
I like to serve all of my biscuits warm, but allow any leftovers to cool and then wrap or keep them covered for 2 days at room temperature. You can reheat for 10 seconds in the microwave, if needed.
Yes! Because you never know when you'll need emergency biscuits, you can freeze these tender biscuits unbaked for up to 3 months. Remove the desired number of biscuits from freezer and place on lined baking sheet. Brush tops with egg wash or milk and sprinkle with flaky salt, if desired. Bake from frozen in a oven preheated to 425°F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until fluffy and golden brown. See my large batch freezer biscuit recipe for more details.
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I appreciate you!
-Cynthia
📖 Recipe
Quick and Easy Biscuits (with your Food Processor)
Ingredients
- 2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon (14 g) baking powder
- 2 teaspoons (8 g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter very cold
- ¾ cup (180 g) buttermilk very cold
Instructions
- Measure your all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and kosher salt into the bowl of your food processor. Add cubes of cold butter.
- Pulse the ingredients for three 1 second pulses, or as we say in America for three Mississippi's (1 Mississippi-2 Mississippi-3 Mississippi).
- Turn the food processor on while slowly pouring your buttermilk in through the opening on the top for another 3 Mississippi's. Stop as soon as the dough forms a ball.
- Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out to about ½ to ¾ inch thick.
- Cut with floured 2-inch round cutter. Gather together your scraps and cut out as many biscuits as you can. Place on your prepared baking sheet.
- Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and place into the fridge or freezer while you preheat your oven to 450°F. Brush the tops with a little more buttermilk or an egg wash.
- Bake at 450°F for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before enjoying with more butter, some honey, or by slicing it open and sliding in a piece of ham.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 10 minutes. I like to brush the tops of the biscuits with melted butter and sprinkle with flaky sea salt.
Cynthia Christensen says
This is one of my favorite new recipes and I can't wait to preview it on PIX 11!
Sheri Giddings says
Hi I have been doing this for quite some time- I have felt guilty thought I was lazy now I don't have to!!
Thanks
Sheri
Cynthia Christensen says
Don't you EVER feel lazy about doing something that makes things easier for you! And sometimes being lazy is the vibe 😎