Cornmeal biscuits have the crunchy, nutty sweet flavor of cornbread, and the light fluffiness of a biscuit (their golden color is gorgeous.) Pair them with all your soups, stews, and chilis this season!
cornmeal biscuits are a happy medium between cornbread and biscuits
Why make plain biscuits when you can make golden cornmeal biscuits? They’re so easy to whip up, and they go with every soup or stew I can think of. Leftovers make the best breakfast sammies ever! Ever.
ingredients you’ll need for cornmeal biscuits
Like most biscuits, these are made with a short pantry-friendly list of ingredients.
- cornmeal
- I used yellow cornmeal, and that’s the most common type, but you will also find white cornmeal, which works just as well. Corn flour is a similar product, but is more finely ground, and you can use that too.
- all purpose flour
- butter
- buttermilk
- I love to bake with cultured buttermilk, it helps things rise and gives them a subtle tang. If you can’t find or don’t want to buy buttermilk you can make an acceptable substitute from milk and lemon juice or vinegar. Add a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to a measuring cup, then fill the rest with whole milk. Set aside on the counter for 15 minutes, then use as you would buttermilk.
- honey
- adds a subtle hint of sweetness ~ so subtle you hardly know it’s there.
- baking powder, baking soda, and salt
how I make my biscuit dough in the food processor
- Add the dry ingredients to processor and pulse to combine.
- Add cold butter and pulse/process until the butter in finely incorporated.
- Add the cornmeal buttermilk mixture to the machine.
- Pulse/process until dough comes together in clumps.
- Form the dough into a flat disk on a floured surface and roll out to a 1″ thickness.
- Cut out biscuits, reforming the dough as necessary.
- Bake!
biscuit making tips
Use cold butter ~ cold butter creates steam when it hits a hot oven and this helps biscuits rise. The trick is getting the cold butter completely incorporated into the biscuit dough without warming it up, which is exactly why I love to use my food processor. It does the job in seconds.
Don’t over work your dough ~ like so many baked goods, over working dough makes a tough product. The food processor does a thorough but quick job of mixing the dough. When I turn it out onto a floured surface I try to pull it together quickly, with as little manipulation as possible.
If your biscuit dough is too wet ~ knead in a bit more flour.
If your biscuit dough is dry and crumbly ~ either add a few more drops of liquid, or form it into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Let sit on the counter to hydrate for about 15 minutes, then proceed.
Make sure your oven is HOT ~ preheating is essential, so don’t rush things. In this recipe I have you slide the biscuits into a 450F oven, then turn it down after about 5 minutes. This gives the biscuits a quick blast of high heat to help them spring skyward 🙂
what to pair with cornmeal biscuits
Chilis of all kinds go perfectly with cornmeal biscuits.
- Chili Stuffed Acorn Squash
- Easy Lentil Chili Recipe
- Easy Meat Lovers Chili
- Slow Cooked Hatch Pepper Chili
- Creamy White (leftover) Turkey Chili
These biscuits will make a meal out of a bowl of soup
- Split Pea Soup with Ham
- Three Sisters Soup
- Lemony Chicken Soup with Orzo
- Cream of Jalapeño Soup
- Smoky Sweet Potato Soup
Cornmeal Biscuits
Video
Ingredients
biscuits
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal (you can also use white cornmeal)
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 Tbsp honey
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 12 Tbsp cold unsalted butter cut in pieces
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 450F
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Whisk the cornmeal, buttermilk and honey together in a bowl and set aside.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to the bowl of a processor and pulse to combine.
- Add in the cold butter pieces and pulse about 10 times until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
- Add the buttermilk/cornmeal mixture to the machine.
- Pulse/process the mixture just enough to bring the dough together into large clumps. Add a little more buttermilk if the dough seems too dry.
- Turn out onto a floured surface and bring together into one lump. Add in a little extra flour if it’s too wet. Note: if the dough is a bit dry or crumbly at this point I will wrap it in plastic and let it sit on the counter for about 15 minutes to allow it to hydrate.
- Pat or roll dough into a 9" round, about an inch thick. Cut out biscuits with a 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter. Reforming the dough as necessary.
- Bake for 5 minutes, until they just start to rise, and then turn down the heat to 400F, and bake for another 8 to 10 minutes, until golden.
- Cool on a rack.
Notes
- If you can’t find or don’t want to buy buttermilk you can make an acceptable substitute from milk and lemon juice or vinegar. Add a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to a measuring cup, then fill the rest with whole milk. Set aside on the counter for 15 minutes, then use as you would buttermilk.
Nutrition
I made these this morning, only thing I did differently was patted them into a square and cut square biscuits, they are sensational! I real change from conventional biscuits. Thank you.
I like that idea, no waste!
This is a fantastic recipe! I didn’t use a food processor just a regular biscuit method. Work just fine. Thank you
BANG BANG!!! BOOGIE OOGIE!!! These biscuits helped my chili go down with style and grace.
🙂 I couldn’t have said it better!
Reference: I’m a 75 year old male with little baking experience, hence the question. Looking at the ingredients, it looks as though this is how you make corn meal mix and self rising flour, so can you use the latter instead? I realize this may be a silly question for most but I don’t understand. That is a lot of extra ingredients to keep on hand. Thanks for your patients.
Yes, you can substitute self rising flour for the white flour + leaveners, that should be fine.
These are great! I used a buttermilk substitute since I didn’t have any on hand, and they still rose up nice and tall and fluffy. Just the right amount of crunch and a perfect alternative to corn muffins.
Thanks so much. I love that they go with so many different kinds of recipes, too. I now can’t make chili without them 🙂
How would I make these without a food processor?
It’s easily done, the only issue is cutting in the butter. You can blend the butter into your dry ingredients with a pastry cutter, or even 2 forks. You want to keep the butter cold, which is why the processor works so well: it combines the two quickly without warming the butter.
Then you can proceed by hand in a bowl without any issues.
I liked the results but they were a bit dense for my taste. Probably won’t make again
Any time you add corn meal, or masa harina in the case of my masa harina biscuits, to a biscuit recipe the texture will get more dense because corn meal bakes up differently from wheat flour. One trick is to use very fine cornmeal or corn flour. Another thought is to use less cornmeal and more regular flour.
I mixed and shaped all the biscuits. I baked half and put the other half on baked in the freezer for later. They are delicious. Great corn flavor, but very light and fluffy.
How did it go with the frozen biscuits? I want to make the dough ahead and think this could help. Let me know!
Can I make these the day before Thanksgiving an reheat them to serve with my crab bisque?
I made these earlier this week and really liked them. I skipped doing the wisk of “cornmeal, buttermilk and honey together in a bowl” I just did everything in the FoodProcessor and they turned out great. I did take the dough out, flatten it out into a rectangle by patting it, then folded it over in thirds and repeated. Then I pressed it out by hand into a 1″ thick rectangle and cut as many biscuits as possible – got 8. Then refolded it and pressed it out again. I cut 10 biscuits with my biscuit cutter, and rolled the last one up our of the remains. Thus we got 11 nice large biscuits. I used stone-ground cornmeal from Wade’s Mill in Raphine, VA – which I had ordered. They make an array of original-style stone ground corn and flower products which I cannot find in any local store. That makes all the difference! The biscuits had a nice texture with a bit of a crunch from the corn.