3 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits

A no-fail Southern buttermilk biscuit recipe that will have them thinking you are a pro, even if this is your first time ever making biscuits.

Weekend hot breakfasts doesn’t get any simpler or more delicious than luscious 3 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits, brushed to perfection with sweet cream butter. Feed your crowd with pleasing and belly-filling homemade recipe in just about 30 minutes.

3 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits

The cutter I grab for the most is my grandmother’s cutter from the Depression and it is 2 1/2-inches around.

Not married to a rounded biscuit? Opt for square biscuits (VERY common here in the South) by using a knife or a pizza cutter. This one’s easy, though you will need to flour your blade or your wheel here and there.

Here are some items around the kitchen you can use if you do NOT own a biscuit cutter…
 
Grab for an upside down glass, dip the mouth of the glass into a couple of inches of flour, and presto! Instant biscuits cutter.
 
Find a high-sided cookie cutter. This gets interesting because the shape of your cookie cutter equals the unique baked shape of your soon-to-be biscuits. Cookie cutters that are not terribly intricate work the best!

Alternatively, when I serve biscuits for a Brunch crowd, I want my dough to go a long way. I might work some bits of chopped country ham or cheddar cheese directly into my dough and opt for dental floss to make clean and accurate square cuts that are 1-inch by 1-inch. I gain a whole bunch of mini biscuits for serving this way!

When I wake Saturday mornings, the typical routine is to get in a cup or two of coffee, then jump in the truck with the family and hit some garage sales. Y’all know how I love my Junkin’. Breakfast generally happens after we make our way to all of the sales, either at home or stopping out somewhere.

If I am peppy and manage to peel myself out of bed before everybody else, biscuit dough is easy enough to whip up in 15 minutes. Biscuit making ingredients are few as you can see, and aside from some melted butter at the end for brushing on the tops, It won’t be long until I am enjoying flaky layers.

Once I have them cut and placed ‘sides touching’ on a lined baking sheet or in a big cast iron skillet, they are refrigerated up to the bake step. It sure makes for a fast and hot breakfast upon returning home.

What You’ll Need to Make 3 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits

• iced cold butter
• self-rising flour
• cold buttermilk

What to serve with these flaky biscuits

• jam or jelly, homemade if you have it
• ham gravy or sausage gravy
• pimento cheese (see my recipe for THE BEST pimento cheese this side of the Mason Dixon!)
• honey or hot honey
• additional butter
• boneless fried chicken, chopped ham, bacon, or other protein combination of choice

How This Biscuit Recipe Came About…

This one was a personal challenge to myself. When my friend Tom turned 50, his wife Leslie threw him a HUGE party. Knowing I was heading to a pig roast, I offered to bake up some biscuits for somewhere around 200 people. My attempt was a disaster.

I brought biscuits to the party alright. But I was late to arrive and I did not have nearly the delicious biscuits I’d hoped for for my friend. In reality, I should not have dreamed of attempting biscuits before mastering this method.

Biscuits are a ‘Southern thing’ and something I definitely did not grow up eating or baking homemade.

Can I Add Additional Ingredients To 3 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits?

Thing is though, with these 3 ingredient biscuits, YOU control what goes in and what goes on. Choose to make additions such as fresh chives, cracked black pepper, bits of chopped country ham, shreds of cheddar cheese, finely chopped sundried tomatoes, or hunks of roasted garlic.

Oh yeah, upscale event? Bake up some roasted garlic mini biscuits and watch ’em go. That by itself is a nourishing thought.

Are 3 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits Expensive To Make?

I am here to attest to the fact that not only is this 3 ingredient buttermilk biscuit recipe not difficult, but is also super economical if you want to be that Mom who fakes Chic-Fil-A or McDonalds bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits for your kids.

Throw in some crispy homefried potatoes, and they’ll believe anything you tell them.

Breakfast in versus breakfast out is much more fun and frankly much more appealing to me. Easy buttermilk biscuits are hard to argue against. This recipe yields 9 to 10 2 1/2″ biscuits, or 7 to 8 3 1/2″ biscuits.

When rolling out the dough, don’t press down too hard or overwork the dough. It’s scary how easy layer upon buttery layer of biscuit perfection really is to achieve. The biscuits re-heat well, either in the oven or in the microwave, without compromising the texture.

I also add no salt, instead allowing both the flavor and any salt to come from the butter alone, so choose a quality salted sweet cream butter right out of the gate. Any additional salty fix comes from whatever you choose to ‘dress your biscuit’ with.

Pro Tips For How To Make 3 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits?

• A few tips I had to learn the hard way…I specify frozen butter. That is for a reason. What I have learned is that the butter cannot be cold enough. Grate the frozen butter into the bowl, mix with the flour, and then re-freeze for 10 to 12 minutes right in the bowl.
• Speaking of flour…self-rising. For THIS recipe, use self rising flour and work on a lightly floured surface of self rising flour. Other biscuit recipes calling for all-purpose flour also follow a different method. This method will not work the same using all purpose flour with baking powder added. It just won’t.
• The buttermilk…WELL CHILLED! And, a bonus tip. I mean, when have you ever known me not to interject more…? HONEY. If you like your biscuits to have some sweetness, not real sweet, rather just something, add 3 tablespoons of honey at the step you stir in the buttermilk.
• And when you read the bit about only stirring the dough 15 times, well I really do mean it. That is, unless you are partial to tough biscuits!