Soft and fluffy buttermilk herb biscuits! These simple pale green quick breads are perfect as a side for roasts, bbq, salads, soup, and so many other dishes. And they are so easy to make. Mix, pat, cut, bake. Boom! You’ll be enjoying them before you know it.
Hello, all.
These days it seems as though EVERYONE who likes to bake (or even thought they might like to try it someday) is making bread. And this includes me.
Not only am I working on getting a sourdough starter going (and it’s finally puffing up after each feeding! YAY!), but I’ve been making rhubarb muffins, banana bread, cookies, and biscuits. While you cannot go wrong with my favorite cheesy zucchini biscuits, I wanted to try something different and came up with this herb filled version.
What’s to love?
- So simple! A handful of ingredients and a few quick pulses in a food processor. Then cut or drop the biscuits and bake!
- So fluffy! I love how tender and soft this recipe is.
- So herby! I use a mild herb (like parsley or basil) for most of the flavor and then add some spice with chives or scallions and finish with whatever complements the dinner.
What do you need?
- Dry Mix – Flour, salt, leaveners – the usual
- Buttermilk – need subs? look below
- Butter – Very cold and cut into cubes
- Herbs – A mix of your favorites/what you have on hand, though half should be something mild like parsley or basil
What can you substitute for buttermilk?
For this recipe you need both dairy and an acid. This will give you browning, lift, and flavor. There are three simple substitutions you can use based on what you have in the house. One note – if you use lowfat milk in option 1, the biscuits may need a little more flour since the liquid will be thinner.
- One cup milk (preferably whole) with one tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice (for 3/4 cup eyeball a 3/4 tablespoon)
- One part plain Greek yogurt plus 2 parts milk (so 1/4 cup yogurt+1/2 cup milk for this recipe)
- One part sour cream plus 2 parts milk (as above)
How to make this
To make herb buttermilk biscuits, mix together dry ingredients with fresh herbs. Then cut in butter and finally mix in the buttermilk. Pat the dough into a 1 inch thick sheet and cut out the rounds. Bake until lightly browned and cooked through.
1. Mixing the Dough
There are two important parts to this – cold butter and a light hand.
Cold butter – Very cold butter will help make your biscuits fluffy. If your butter is a little soft after cutting it up, pop it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes before beginning. Related to this, cold buttermilk too! Measure it out and put the cup in the fridge until you are ready to add.
Light hand – As with any quick bread, don’t mix too much. Just until the ingredients are combined and then stop! This will keep them tender.
2. Cutting/Shaping
For cut biscuits, use a sharp 2 inch cutter. Grease and flour the cutter, giving it a fresh coat of flour with each cut. And – here’s an important bit – press straight down and then pull straight up, basically punching out the rounds. No twisting!
If you prefer drop biscuits, divide the dough up into 12 portions, make them into rough balls and bake.
Uses for Leftover Buttermilk
Now that you’ve made biscuits and you have most of a container of buttermilk in the house, what to do with the rest?
- Make simple quick breads and breakfasts, like Chocolate Strawberry Scones, Sweet Potato Pancakes, or Pear Bread.
- Make cakes, like Strawberry Walnut Cake or Orange Bundt Cake.
- Make sauces, like Green Goddess Dressing or Blue Cheese Dressing.
If you try my recipe for Tender Herbed Biscuits, I would love to hear from you in the comments with your experience and rating! And I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.
– Stay Safe, Annemarie
Tender Herb Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients
- 2 cups (10 oz) all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp table salt
- 4 tbsp chopped fresh herbs
- 8 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
Instructions
- Heat oven to 450F.
- Pulse the flour, baking powder, and baking soda in the bowl of a food processor. Add the herbs and pulse a few more times to distribute them through the mix.
- Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal and there are no large lumps of butter left, about 6 1-second pulses.
- Add the buttermilk and pulse a few times, until the dough gathers into clumps. Scrape the biscuit dough out onto a lightly floured board.
- Pat the dough into a circle or oblong shape at an even 1 inch high.
- Grease a 2 inch biscuit cutter with butter and then coat it with flour. (Make a little hill of flour next to your biscuit dough.)
- Punch down with the cutter into dough with one decisive press down (no twisting!) and then straight up. Move the biscuit to a baking sheet. Continue punching out biscuits, cutting them as close together as possible and dipping the cutter into that hill of flour in between each cut.
- Now take the scraps of dough and pat them together into a new 1 inch high oblong. Punch out as many more biscuits as you can.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly browned and puffed.
Notes
- Herbs: Stick with a mild herb for half or more of the amount. I like to use mostly parsley or basil myself. The rest can be a mix of chives, oregano, thyme, mint, scallions, garlic scapes, or whatever you have which will go with your meal.
- Flour: For the lightest and fluffiest biscuits, use a low protein all-purpose flour (such as White Lily) or switch to using half cake flour. King Arthur Flour (my usual) is a hard Northern flour so I often use the half and half method.
- Measuring: For cups of flour which are 5 oz by weight, scoop the cup into the flour then sweep off the excess. (scoop and sweep)
- Gluten Free: An all purpose baking blend can be used 1:1 for the flour in this recipe.
- Drop Biscuits: If you prefer, split up the dough into 12 parts and lightly shape into balls. Bake as directed in the recipe.
- Butter: Keep very cold! I often cut it up then pop it in the freezer while I measure out the rest of the ingredients.
- Reshaping the dough: You will get the best rise and fluffiest biscuits from the first shape. The second shape will be a little lower but still very nice and I don't recommend a third shape (you'll have very little left anyway).
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