Sourdough Biscuits Recipe: How to Make Sourdough Biscuits

Sourdough biscuits are a variety of quick bread made from flour, butter, salt, milk or buttermilk, and sourdough starter. Depending on their preparation, buttery, flaky biscuits can be crispy on the outside or as fluffy as muffins; savory (with cheddar and chives), or sweet (with cinnamon sugar swirls).

Like puff pastry, biscuit dough features bits of butter evenly distributed throughout; when baked, the water in the dairy turns to steam and pushes air pockets into layers of dough, creating an accordion effect. Traditionally, biscuits include two leavening agents: baking powder and baking soda. Sourdough biscuits introduce a small amount of another leavening—and flavor—agent: sourdough discard, which enhances baked goods with its delightfully tangy, savory taste.

Sourdough biscuits are an excellent vehicle for sourdough discard. To maintain an active starter, you’ll need to remove most of the starter every few days before adding fresh flour and water for the wild yeast to consume. Biscuits are a creative and easy use of discard—and there are plenty of other go-to sourdough discard recipes, including sourdough crêpes, sourdough pancakes, and sourdough waffles.

Making sourdough biscuits is as easy as incorporating a little sourdough discard into standard biscuit dough. Here’s what you need to know:

1. 1. Start with a homemade starter. Sourdough is another term for naturally leavened bread and baked goods. Harnessing its flavor is as simple as mixing equal parts flour and water and leaving the mixture in a warm location. (Apollonia Poilâne’s sourdough starter recipe lays out how to make one from scratch.) Once your sourdough starter develops yeast and lactic acid bacteria, you'll start to notice signs of fermentation. Regularly removing half of the dough and feeding flour to the remaining half keeps it happy and bubbly. Instead of throwing away the discard, use it to make biscuits.
2. 2. Work quickly. Speed is crucial when working with cold butter or shortening. Combine the cold fat into the dry flour mixture with your fingers, a pastry cutter, in a food processor, or grate frozen butter on a box grater to make the process even faster.
3. 3. Knead just a few times. Folding biscuit dough is a case of hands-off kneading since overworking the dough yields tough biscuits. Once you have combined the dry and wet ingredients, fold the dough over itself like a book, repeating as you rotate a few times. Avoid over-kneading, which can result in a dense crumb—the goal is to create natural stacks within the dough.
4. 4. Complement the sourdough. Buttermilk biscuits are a Southern classic. Sourdough biscuits have some natural acidity from the sourdough discard, so use milk instead of buttermilk for a sweeter flavor. Stick to buttermilk to amp up the tangy flavor. Learn how to make your own with this easy buttermilk recipe.