17-39: Herbed Buttermilk Biscuits

If you’re looking for a relatively easy homemade buttermilk biscuit recipe, 17-39: Herbed Buttermilk Biscuits isn’t a bad choice. I made these once before for a dinner I made about 8 years ago. I remember thinking they were very bland as written–hence my notes written on the front and back about adding more salt. After following my own suggestions this time around, they’re much improved.

I didn’t make these for any particular dinner or reason this time around, but they still made decent snacks and accompaniments to meals throughout the week.


I get it, past me. More salt. I’ll make sure I take care of that this time around. I upped my salt to 1 full teaspoon, but even 1/2 teaspoon would make a big difference if you’re trying to cut back on your salt a bit but still want some flavor.


Ingredients. The parsley was a bit droopy, but for baking that’ll work just fine. I used the rest of this buttermilk to make 17-11: Scones. I had originally intended to make these biscuits alongside 17-50: Cornmeal-Jalapeño Biscuits, but half the ingredients (including that buttermilk) had gone bad on me before I could get both of them done.


Mixing this with a blade in the food processor will make life easier.


Cutting the herbs into the dry ingredients evenly helps with biscuit consistency and flavor.


When it sticks to the side of the bowl in one big blob (and not much past that), your dough is ready.


I somehow neglected to take pictures of the rolling and cutting, but I used a regular rolling pin (you can see it in the far background) to roll the dough out, and fluted biscuit cutters to cut them out. I didn’t go as large as they suggested (2″ rounds), but if you don’t have biscuit or cookie cutters, a round drinking glass works just fine as well.


I used the Silpat instead of greasing the pan, but doing that or using parchment paper are fine options as well. I sprinkled a little extra herb salt on top of each biscuit before baking just to ensure that these will turn out better than before.


After baking. These maybe got a bit more lift than I would have wanted, but I blame my wonky oven for some of that.


I was able to get a dozen medium-sized biscuits as opposed to the suggested 6 large ones, which seem more appropriately portioned. Upping the salt to a full teaspoon and sprinkling a bit more on top made a HUGE difference–these were much more flavorful than the first time I made them. They freeze well too…I think there’s still a few from this batch in the frosty depths of mine right now.

Grade: A