Quick and Easy Biscuits (with your Food Processor)

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.

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.

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

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