Yeah, I know biscuits aren’t meat but stay with me for a little while….
When I moved to the South I knew biscuits were something I needed to learn how to make. I had made a few here and there in the past but they were never good so after trying about a half dozen different recipes I stumbled upon one from a restaurant in Brooklyn called Pies-n-Thighs. Ultimately I wanted a biscuit that would hold up to being used kind of like a bun. I wanted something you could use for a fried chicken biscuit and it would still hold up.
These biscuits aren’t necessarily flaky or soft but they aren’t hard, tough biscuits either. They end up super buttery (should be, there is 3 sticks of butter in them), they rise nicely, and are sturdy enough to hold up to whatever you want to top them with. If you just want to put some butter and jam on them they are great that way as well. So if you are looking for an easy biscuit recipe that turns out a great result check the recipe below.
Like I said earlier, these biscuits can stand on their own or they are great to use as a bun. The end up about 3+ inches tall so they are definitely big enough to split in half. Here is my favorite application:
Just fry up some bacon (the Kurobuta bacon from Snake River Farms is my favorite), fry an egg, and add a couple slices of cheddar cheese. You can even throw some lettuce and tomato and have a BLT biscuit.
A couple more ideas of what to do with this great biscuit recipe:
- A fried chicken breast goes great on these biscuits and my favorite recipe to use for that is this Chick-Fil-A knockoff from Serious Eats.
- Fry up some sausage and make a nice sausage gravy for some excellent biscuits and gravy
- In a pinch I have used these as hamburger buns and they are great for that. The biscuit does a nice job of soaking up the juice from the burger. Go somewhat light on the toppings and you will be fine.
- Cut up some strawberries, cook them with a bit of sugar, whip up some cream and you have a great Strawberry Shortcake
- Cook up some chicken pot pie filling, cut the biscuits in half, and throw them on top
- A biscuit brown betty
- Biscuit pudding
- And the list goes on…
Give this biscuit recipe a shot the next time you make biscuits and I think you will like it too.
My Favorite Biscuit Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 Cups chilled, unsalted butter 3 sticks
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk use the full fat version if you can find it
- 1 egg beaten with a fork
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375 and line two sheet pans with parchment
- Cut your butter into small pieces. I usually try to cut each stick into about 24 pieces or so. The more you cut now the better. After the butter is cut put it back in the fridge or even the freezer for a couple minutes to make sure it is cold.
- Add butter, baking powder, salt, sugar, baking powder, and flour to your food processor and pulse a few times until the butter is incorporated with the dry ingredients. It should resemble coarse meal.
- Transfer to a large bowl and add the buttermilk. Mix gently with a fork or large spoon until the dough comes together. It will still be fairly craggy looking dough but that is what you want. Don't over mix. If you really want to save time you can do this step in a mixer but only mix for a few seconds.
- Move the dough to a lightly floured surface (I usually use a Silpat for this) and gently bring the dough together and flatten until it is about 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 inches thick. If you want thicker biscuits go ahead and make the dough thicker
- Cut out biscuits using a *round biscuit cutter. I usually use a 3 1/4 inch cutter but you can use bigger or smaller depending on what you want to use it for. Cut straight down and never, ever twist the cutter as you are cutting.
- Reform the scraps and cut some more out. If you have enough scraps after the second cut you can do one more but the quality of the biscuits degrades with each cutting.
- Place the biscuits on your parchment lined pans, brush with the beaten egg, and bake about 30 minutes until nice and golden brown.
- Remove the biscuits from the oven and brush the tops with butter if you want. Optional but why wouldn't you want more butter???
