Cornmeal Biscuits—Easy and Delicious

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4.37 from 11 votes

Cornmeal biscuits are a perfect combination of the crunchiness of cornbread with the ease and tenderness of buttermilk drop biscuits that come together in a jiffy.

image of cornbread drop biscuits on orange plate

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🌽Ingredients
👨‍🍳How to Make Cornmeal Biscuits
✔️Tips
Troubleshooting
Storage
Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
📖 Recipe

Soft and flavorful biscuits with the nutty corn flavor and the tenderness of drop biscuits.Perfect for chili, soups, or other comfort foods. Just whip it up when you need them.

Like any drop biscuits, they are quick and super easy to make. You get the great taste of cornbread with a few pantry ingredients.

Serve with comfort food type dishes, like Beef Stew, Chicken Stew, Salisbury Steak, and Old Fashioned Meatloaf. Other recipes you will love are Old Fashioned Cornbread, Cheddar Bay Biscuits, Low-Fat Biscuits, and Beer Bread

The best model recipe was from Cooks Country (membership site). It had a 3 to 1 ratio of flour to cornmeal. I combined that with my usual biscuits with some great results.

🌽Ingredients

Flour—all-purpose (AP) flour
Cornmeal—yellow or white
Honey
Buttermilk—or make a buttermilk substitute (in the recipe) or you may use milk.
Pantry ingredients—baking powder, baking soda, salt, butter

👨‍🍳How to Make Cornmeal Biscuits

Combine flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut up cold butter.
In a separate bowl, combine warm honey with buttermilk. Mix well.
Add wet with dry and mix until combined but don't over-mix.
Make 8 drop biscuits about 1 ¼ inch each on a baking sheet coated with PAM baking spray.
Bake until golden brown—12-14 minutes.

✔️Tips

Cornmeal can be white or yellow. This seems to be a regional/cultural thing. In the south, it appears that white cornmeal is the norm. But in the north and midwest, yellow is more common. The choice is yours; the taste and texture are essentially the same.
Flour is needed to maintain the structure of drop biscuits, so the ratio of cornmeal to flour can be important. But a one-to-one ratio will almost require a cut biscuit, which is fine but takes a bit more work. A ratio of 3 to 1 or 2 to 1 works well for drop biscuits and still has an excellent cornbread taste but still has that tender biscuit texture.
I suggest all-purpose flour, whole wheat increases the density of biscuits, and combined with the cornmeal, will become a texture issue.
Please don't skip the honey. It makes the corn taste pop.
Buttermilk is recommended, but plain milk may be used and still have very good results.
You can add about a tablespoon of either white vinegar or lemon juice to a cup of fresh milk and let it sit for 5-10 minutes to make a buttermilk substitute.
If you happen to have dried buttermilk, it works great in baking.
To make cut biscuits, roll out the dough to 1 inch thick on a lightly floured surface and cut with a 2-inch biscuit cutter.
Optional ingredients—Anything you might add to cornbread will work here, like cheddar cheese, jalapeno pepper, chivesF

Troubleshooting

Why are my cornmeal biscuits flat?

Several things are already in your favor to prevent this with this recipe, but it can still happen. The baking powder is maxed out. The baking soda gives you a quick pop at the beginning of the cooking. And the ratio of cornmeal to flour is good.

1) Oven temperature
It needs to be hot and fully preheated. Your oven may be running a little cool. Have you noticed that things take a little longer to cook than the recipes say?
You can up the temperature by 25 degrees. Even if you are wrong, it will be ok, and just the cooking time will be shorter. Or you can check it with an oven thermometer.

2) Too Moist or Too Dry of Dough
Those balls of dough should be sticky but not too mushy. If they are too moist, they will start to fall a little just sitting there. Put them back in the bowl and add a tablespoon or two of flour.
Too dry (not sticky) is bad also; they won't rise correctly. You need to get a feel for it.

3) Bad baking powder
Baking powder that is old or has had excessive air exposure may not work well.

Storage

Store in an airtight container. Good at room temperature for 1-2 days, refrigerated for up to 7 days, and frozen for 2-3 months.

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Step-by-Step Photo Instructions

Preheat oven to 400° convection or 425° conventional.

cutting butter into dry ingredients with fork

Combine 1 ½ cups flour, ½ cup cornmeal, 1 tablespoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon salt. Cut up or shred ½ stick (4 tablespoons) cold butter. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a fork or pastry blender..

In a separate bowl, add 2 tablespoons of honey to ¾ cup of buttermilk. Mix well. The honey will dissolve better if warm. If you don't have buttermilk handy, add 2 teaspoons of white vinegar or lemon juice to the milk before dissolving the honey,

Add wet with dry and mix until combined but don't over-mix. Just get to the point that all the dry components are incorporated.

Prep a smaller baking sheet with a good coating of PAM cooking spray or parchment paper. Make 8 drop biscuits. That will be balls of about 1 ¼ inch each.

Bake until golden brown. 12-14 minutes total.