These bacon and chives biscuits are savory and packed full of flavor with the addition of chopped bacon, chives, and sharp cheddar cheese. Even better, they are super easy and fast to make!
Though drop biscuits are my go-to side item for a meal when I want something fast and easy, sometimes I want to bring up a notch! And drop biscuits are the ideal blank slate for this, as they are easily customizable. My favorite version includes bacon, chives, and cheddar cheese. While I make plain drop biscuits to accompany a meal, these bacon and chives biscuits can be served on their own. In fact, my husband has been known to eat them for lunch all by themselves.
About Self-Rising Flour
This recipe calls for self-rising flour which is all-purpose flour that is already blended with salt and baking powder. Don’t confuse self-rising flour with cake flour or a pre-made biscuit box mix like Bisquick. They are not interchangeable.
If you don’t have self-rising flour in the pantry and you don’t want to buy a bag of it, you can make your own. Just place 2 cups of all-purpose flour in a bowl and add 1 tablespoon of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Take a balloon whisk and stir vigorously until all the ingredients are blended. Use this in place of the self-rising flour in the recipe.
Customize Your Biscuits
I used cooked bacon, grated cheddar cheese, and chives in these biscuits, but you can switch it up and change them to your own taste. Try using an equal amount of chopped ham or cooked breakfast sausage for the bacon. Use green onions or minced shallots in place of the chives. Or add in a tablespoon of fresh chopped herbs like thyme, sage, or parsley.
You can also make them vegetarian by omitting the bacon or subbing in a plant-based meat sausage. Or skip the faux-meat and use finely chopped cooked mushrooms in the biscuits! Drop biscuits are an empty canvas and you’re the artist!
Can I Substitute Or Use A Different Cheese?
Just like the bacon and chives, you can totally sub in a different cheese for these biscuits. I like sharp cheddar cheese because its strong flavor stands up to the bacon and chives. But you can use a medium or mild cheddar if you prefer.
Any hard or semi-hard cheese will work though. Try swapping out Monterey Jack cheese, Pepper Jack cheese, Mozzarella, Parmesan, Gruyere, Swiss, or even Feta or Blue Cheese. Basically, any cheese you can crumble or grate works.
I do recommend that you grate the cheese yourself, using the large holes in a box grater or hand grater. This is more work, but the quality from a large block of cheese is higher (and cheaper) than a pre-grated bag of cheese. Pre-grated cheese is also often coated with a substance to prevent the cheese from sticking to each other. This coating can prevent the cheese from melting properly in the biscuit.
All that said, I’d avoid a super soft runny cheese like Brie or Camembert for biscuits. Any cheese that you can smear or spread is too soft for adding to a biscuits. Save those cheese for after you bake the biscuit. Just open up the warm biscuit, smear some Brie on top, and dive in!
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Bacon, Cheddar, and Chive Drop Biscuits
These savory bacon and chives biscuits are easy to make but do require you to use cooked bacon. So, the next time you make a batch of bacon, make extra and then reserve it for these biscuits! Or buy pre-cooked bacon at the store and chop or crumble it for these biscuits.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 18 minutes
- Total Time: 28 minutes
- Yield: 10 servings 1x
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 2 cups self-rising flour
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, from the refrigerator
- 8 oz. chopped bacon, cooked, drained, and cooled
- 4 oz. grated sharp Cheddar cheese, about 1 cup
- 3 Tbsp. chopped chives
- 1 cup buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line 2 baking sheet with parchment paper and lightly spray it with cooking oil.
- Place the self-rising flour in a large bowl. Take the stick of butter and dip it in the flour to coat it. Then grate the butter through the large hole of a box grater or hand grater. If the butter starts to stick to your hands, just dip it back into the flour to coat it again.
- Once all the butter is grated, gently toss the butter flakes with the flour to coat them. Add the grated cheese, chopped chives, and cooked bacon into the bowl. Toss to coat.
- Drizzle the buttermilk over the flour and butter, tossing the ingredients with a large spatula or fork, to mix. Keep adding the buttermilk, gently tossing, folding and stirring until all the buttermilk is incorporated and a dough has formed. Don’t overmix. It will lead to a heavy biscuit. Just gently fold until all the dry ingredients are mostly absorbed.
- Heap ¼ cup mounds of the dough onto the baking sheet, making about 5 even mounds on one baking sheet. Repeat with on the other baking sheet, making 10 biscuits total. You can wet your hands and gently pat them together to form a more cohesive biscuit shape if you want, but drop biscuits are not meant to be fussy. Just mound them as best you can.
- Bake in the oven for 17 to 19 minutes or until the top of the biscuit is just starting to turn golden brown and a toothpick inserted inside the biscuit comes out clean. Let rest on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before moving biscuits to a wire rack to cool completely.
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