Here's everything worth knowing about biscuit dough and how to pick it, what it is, how to store it, and what to use instead, plus 16 recipes to cook tonight.

What is biscuit dough?

Biscuit dough is the soft, shaggy flour mixture that bakes up into tender, flaky biscuits. It is built on flour and a chemical leavener like baking powder, cut with fat and a liquid such as buttermilk.

As a recipe ingredient, though, biscuit dough is rarely the star. It is the wrapper and topper that holds other dishes together.

You can make it from scratch in minutes or pull it from a can. Refrigerated biscuit dough in a pop-open tube is the shortcut most of these recipes lean on, and it behaves almost the same as homemade once it hits heat.

This page is about using biscuit dough as a component, not about baking a plain pan of biscuits.

How to Use It

The dough's job is structure. It puffs and browns in the oven while staying tender inside, which makes it a fast cap, crust, or pocket for almost anything savory or sweet.

Drop spoonfuls over a bubbling filling and you have a cobbler topping, the way Fig & Cherry Cobbler and Quick Cranberry Cobbler work. The dough soaks up a little fruit juice underneath while staying biscuity on top.

Lay rounds across a stew and you get a pot pie lid, as in Another Chicken Pot Pie. Cook the filling first, since the dough only needs the fifteen to twenty minutes it takes the biscuits to bake through.

Wrap the dough around a filling and pinch it shut for handheld pockets and rolls. Ham Rolls with Cheese Sauce, Turkey & Swiss Pockets, and Tangy Roast Beef Pockets all use a flattened biscuit as the casing. The same trick around a cocktail sausage gives you pigs in blankets.

It also goes sweet. Drop pieces into a buttery, sugary pan for pull-apart monkey bread, or fry and glaze them as in Baked Biscuit Dough Donuts.

Dumplings and Cobbler Tops

Biscuit dough has a second life simmered instead of baked. Drop spoonfuls onto a bubbling stew, then cover the pot and let them steam into dumplings, as in Slow Cooker Chicken & Dumplings.

The lid is not optional here. Dumplings cook in trapped steam, not in the liquid, so lifting it lets the steam escape and leaves you with gummy, raw centers. Keep it covered for the full cook, usually 12 to 15 minutes.

For a cobbler, the opposite holds: leave the top open so the dough browns. Cover a cobbler and the topping steams pale and damp instead of crisping.

Working With It and Common Mistakes

The cardinal rule is do not overwork it. Stir or knead biscuit dough only until it just comes together; too much handling develops gluten and bakes up tough and dense instead of light and flaky. A few visible lumps of fat are a good sign, not a flaw.

Keep it cold. Cold fat is what creates flaky layers, melting into steam pockets in the oven, so warm dough that has gone slack spreads and bakes flat. If the dough softens while you work, chill it for ten minutes before baking.

The other frequent miss is underbaking a filled dish. A pot pie lid or a stuffed pocket can look browned on top while the underside is still raw and doughy. Give it the full bake and check that the bottom of the dough is cooked through.

Buying and Storage

Refrigerated biscuit dough comes in pressurized tubes in the dairy case, in styles from flaky layers to fluffy Grands. Check the date and keep it cold until you open it; the dough relies on its leavener staying active.

Store an opened tube tightly wrapped in the refrigerator and use it within a day or two, since once the can is popped the dough dries out and the rise weakens.

You can freeze unbaked biscuits or rounds on a tray, then bag them and bake from frozen with a few extra minutes.

Homemade biscuit dough is happiest baked right away while the leavener is fresh. If you must wait, refrigerate it covered for up to a couple of hours; longer and the baking powder loses its lift and the biscuits rise poorly.

Quick facts

In Chinese

饼干面团

British (UK) term

Biscuit dough

en français

pâte à biscuit

en español

masa de galletas

Recipes using biscuit dough

There are 16 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 16 recipes