Wondering what to do with refrigerator biscuits? This guide covers how to pick them, cook them, store them, and swap them, plus 24 recipes to put them to work.

What are refrigerator biscuits?

Refrigerator biscuits are the cans of pre-made biscuit dough that pop open in the dairy case, Pillsbury and its store-brand cousins being the ones most people picture. Inside is a roll of soft, layered dough portioned into rounds, already leavened and ready to bake.

They exist to skip the work. No cutting in cold butter, no rolling, no measuring; you twist the cardboard tube until it cracks, peel the rounds apart, and bake. In fifteen minutes you have hot biscuits.

That convenience is also why they show up far beyond the breakfast table. Because the dough is sturdy and pre-portioned, cooks pull it apart and reshape it into everything from monkey bread to mini pizza crusts.

How to Use Them

Straight up, they bake into dinner rolls and breakfast biscuits. Brush the tops with melted butter before baking for color, and do not crowd them on the sheet if you want crisp sides rather than soft pull-aparts.

The real fun is repurposing. Cut or tear each round into pieces, toss them in cinnamon sugar and butter, and you have monkey bread, the move behind So Awesome Monkey Bread and Apple & Walnut Monkey Bread.

Flatten a round into a disc and it becomes a quick crust for Snack Pizzas or an empanada wrapper.

They are also a fast biscuit topping for savory bakes. Tuna with Biscuits and a Cheese-Beef Casserole Pie set the rounds on top of a hot filling so they bake into a cobbler-style lid.

Wrap a round around a sausage or a chunk of cheese, or arrange them in a tube pan with parmesan and butter the way Sm Parmesan Break-Away Rolls does, for a pull-apart loaf.

For dumplings, drop torn pieces into simmering stew and cover the pot so they steam through.

Handling and Common Mistakes

Keep the dough cold until the moment you open it. Warm dough turns slack and sticky, and the layers stop separating cleanly, so work quickly once the can is open.

The biggest mistake is underbaking. The centers look done before they are, especially when the rounds are stacked or filled, so give them the full time and check that the middle is no longer doughy.

The second is overcrowding a pan when you want crisp edges. Pressed together they steam and stay pale and soft, which is great for pull-apart bread but wrong for a crisp-bottomed pizza.

Watch the sugar on anything caramel-coated, like monkey bread; the syrup goes from golden to burnt fast, so pull it as soon as it is deep amber and bubbling.

Substitutes

Refrigerated crescent roll dough is the closest swap and often interchangeable, though it is richer and flakier and comes as flat triangles rather than rounds. For a crust or wrapper it works well; for a stacked biscuit it bakes thinner.

Homemade drop biscuit dough stands in anywhere you would bake the rounds plain or use them as a cobbler topping, and it tastes better, though you lose the grab-and-go speed.

For pizza or empanadas, refrigerated pizza dough or pie crust gives you a thinner, crisper result. None of these match the exact puffy layers of the canned biscuit, so adjust the bake time to the dough you actually use.

Buying and Storage

Find them in the refrigerated dairy case near the eggs and crescent rolls, sold in cardboard tubes of six to a dozen.

Cans come in sizes from small buttermilk rounds to large flaky Grands-style biscuits, so match the size to the recipe; a monkey bread written for small biscuits needs more cans if you buy the big ones.

These are perishable dough, not a pantry item. Keep the can refrigerated and use it by the printed date, which is usually only a few weeks out. Once you open a can you have to bake all of it; the dough cannot be resealed and stored.

You can freeze the unbaked rounds. Arrange them on a tray to firm up, then bag them frozen and bake straight from the freezer with a few extra minutes added.

Quick facts

In Chinese

冰箱饼干

British (UK) term

Refrigerator biscuits

en français

biscuits de réfrigérateurs

en español

galletas refrigerador

Recipes using refrigerator biscuits

There are 24 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 24 recipes