Ready for the flakiest, most buttery and tender biscuits? This buttermilk biscuit recipe is a true gem—and all your friends will ask for your secrets.

See those up there? Yes, those are the best buttermilk biscuits ever. And we don’t want to keep them to ourselves. We want to give away all our secrets! You know how when your mom has a great recipe, she only gives you half of the instructions on how to make it — so you never make it quite like she does? Well, Alex and I want to tell you exactly how to make these! They’re perfectly flaky, layered, salty and buttery with just a hint of sweetness. They are also the perfect carrier for hot honey (just saying). Here are all our secrets on how to make the perfect buttermilk biscuit recipe.

Want vegan instead? Try our Best Vegan Biscuits.

The secrets to this buttermilk biscuit recipe

This buttermilk biscuit recipe is seriously flaky, a little tangy, and perfectly tender: pretty much our definition of exactly what a biscuit should be. In creating these biscuits, we learned a few secrets to creating a great biscuit. Here’s what we learned:

Use buttermilk. Our old favorite biscuit recipe didn’t have buttermilk, but we now see that buttermilk makes a superior biscuit. What makes it so great? It adds a tangy flavor, but even better: it also gives a tall rise to the biscuits. When baking soda and acidified dairy are combined in a batter, they release carbon dioxide bubbles that help lighten whatever you’re making. (See below for a buttermilk substitute.)
Freeze the butter. The key to dough like biscuit dough is to keep the butter as cold as possible: this is how you get the layered and flaky texture. For this recipe, we’ve called for freezing the butter, then grating it into the dough. It works like a charm: you can freeze for at least 30 minutes, or even overnight if you think of it.

It only takes a handful of ingredients to make this buttermilk biscuit recipe. Aside from buttermilk, everything else are standard ingredients you might have onhand:

All purpose flour
Baking powder & baking soda
Butter
Buttermilk
Powdered sugar
Salt

And that’s it! The only other part that requires some technique is the rolling and folding process. Once the dough comes together, you’ll roll it into a rectangle, then fold it in half and roll it back out into the same shape. You’ll repeat this 3 more times: this is what creates the beautiful layers in the biscuit.

What is a buttermilk substitute?

The most popular buttermilk substitute out there is using milk plus an acid: either lemon juice or white vinegar. This mimics the tang and acidity of the buttermilk. Here’s how to do it:

Combine 1 scant cup milk with 1 tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar. (Or to be most precise, 15 tablespoons milk!)
Allow to stand for 5 minutes before using.

Serving buttermilk biscuits

This buttermilk biscuits recipe is so good, we recommend serving them as often as possible! With soups, stews, chili: anything is better with a biscuit! Here are our top ways to eat these buttermilk biscuits:

Drizzled with hot honey. (Duh.)
With homemade strawberry jam. (Double duh.)
As veggie-style biscuits and gravy.
With corn chowder.
Alongside scrambled eggs.
As a 5 minute breakfast sandwich.
With classic vegetarian chili.
With wild rice soup.
Alongside tomato basil soup.
With our famous shrimp and grits.

Got buttermilk to use up? Try our Classic Buttermilk Pancakes.

This buttermilk biscuit recipe is…

Vegetarian.