Split gluten-free biscuit with butter melting into the soft center

Easy Gluten-Free Biscuits

Name: Easy Gluten-Free Biscuits
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 14 min
Total time: 19 min
Yield: 1 biscuit
Ingredients: 1 pouch (12.3 oz) Pamela's Gluten-Free Buttermilk Drop Biscuit Mix; 1 cup cold water

on Oct 14 2026

Table of Contents

There is a particular silence that happens at a table when the biscuits come out and you cannot have one. If you have been gluten-free for any length of time, you know it, and you have probably made your peace with it by improvising something from pancake mix.

You do not have to anymore. These take a pouch of Pamela's Buttermilk Drop Biscuit Mix and one cup of cold water. That is the entire ingredient list. No rolling pin, no biscuit cutter, no grating frozen butter, no chilling the dough and hoping. Stir, drop spoonfuls onto a pan, bake for fourteen minutes.

What comes out has crisp golden edges, a soft steamy middle, and enough structure to split and butter. The real buttermilk is already in the mix, which is why they taste like biscuits and not like a gluten-free approximation of biscuits.

Two things decide whether yours come out right, and both take about four seconds to get correct. Use cold water, and stop mixing sooner than feels right. Everything else is the oven's job. So good, no one will guess they are gluten-free, the way Pamela's has done it since 1988.

Why These Only Take Two Ingredients

A from-scratch biscuit needs flour, leavening, salt, a little sugar, cold fat, and buttermilk, and it needs the fat kept cold and worked in without melting. That is six ingredients and a technique.

Pamela's Buttermilk Drop Biscuit Mix has all six already in the pouch, including the fat, cut to the right size, and real buttermilk rather than a powder standing in for it. The work of a biscuit is the fat handling. The mix has done that part.

The mix these are built on Pamela's Gluten-Free Buttermilk Drop Biscuit Mix Real buttermilk in the mix, just add water. GFCO-certified gluten-free and kosher. Makes about 12 biscuits.

That is also why there is no substituting here. This is not a recipe you can make with a different mix and get the same result, because the fat ratio and the leavening are built for this water quantity.

Why the Water Has to Be Cold

The package says cold water. It is worth knowing why, because it is the single thing most likely to change your result.

The fat in the mix is solid, and it needs to stay that way until it hits the oven. When those solid pieces of fat melt in a hot oven, they release steam in little pockets, and those pockets are what make the top of a biscuit flaky and craggy instead of smooth.

Warm water melts the fat during mixing, before it ever reaches the pan. The steam pockets never form, and what you get is closer to a scone: perfectly edible, noticeably denser, without the shaggy top.

Cold tap water is fine. It does not need ice. If your tap runs warm, fill the cup and let it sit for a minute.

How to Know When to Stop Mixing

Stop while it still looks uneven. That is the honest instruction.

The dough should be shaggy and uneven, with a few dry spots that have not quite absorbed. If it looks smooth and uniform, you have gone too far.

Overmixing does two things, both bad. It develops the binder into something rubbery, and it warms and smears the fat, which is the same problem warm water causes. A biscuit that came out tough or flat was almost always mixed thirty seconds too long.

Count it if that helps. About fifteen stirs with a fork or a sturdy spoon is usually enough. Then stop, even if it looks like it needs more.

The tip from the back of the bag, and it is a good one. Dip your spoon in cold water between portions. The dough releases cleanly instead of dragging, and you get rounder mounds with less fussing.

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 14 minutes

Total Time 19 minutes

Yield about 12 biscuits

Serving Size 1 biscuit

Ingredients

1 pouch (12.3 oz) Pamela's Gluten-Free Buttermilk Drop Biscuit Mix
1 cup cold water

Shop Gluten-Free Original Buttermilk Drop Biscuit Mix

Directions

Heat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Empty the pouch into a bowl and add the cold water. Stir just until the dry mix disappears, about fifteen stirs. The dough should look shaggy and uneven with a few dry spots. Do not mix until smooth.
Drop mounded spoonfuls onto a nonstick or parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Dip the spoon in cold water between portions so the dough releases cleanly.
Bake 14 minutes, or until the tops are lightly golden.
Cool 5 minutes before serving. They finish setting as they cool.

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Gluten-Free Original Buttermilk Drop Biscuit Mix

Recipe Tips & Notes

Can You Make Biscuits from Pancake Mix?

You can, and for years that was the best option a gluten-free kitchen had. Pancake mix has flour, leavening, and salt in it, so with added fat and a thicker ratio it will give you something biscuit-shaped.

It is a workaround, though, and it tastes like one. Pancake mix is built to spread thin and cook fast on a griddle. Biscuits need more fat, less liquid, and a much hotter oven. You can get there, but you are correcting the mix the whole way.

If you want the pancake mix version, we have it: gluten-free drop biscuits with Pancake & Baking Mix. It is a good recipe and people have been making it for years.

If you want biscuits without the correcting, that is what this mix is for. The fat ratio, the leavening, and the buttermilk are already right, which is why the ingredient list is two things long instead of six.

Two Ingredients vs From Scratch

Worth being straight about the trade, because from-scratch biscuits are genuinely wonderful and this is not an argument against them.

A from-scratch gluten-free biscuit asks for six ingredients or more, and it asks you to handle cold butter without letting it warm up, roll the dough out, cut it, and usually chill it before it goes anywhere near the oven. Call it twenty to thirty minutes of actual work, and the result depends on how well you did the butter part.

This one asks for two ingredients and about five minutes. The butter handling is already done, there is nothing to roll or cut, and no chilling. It also comes out the same every time, which from-scratch biscuits famously do not.

What you give up is control. From scratch, you decide the fat, the sweetness, the buttermilk. Here the mix has decided all of it, and the trade for that is a biscuit on the table in under twenty minutes.

From scratch wins when you want control, when you are adjusting fat or sweetness, or when making the thing is the point.

The mix wins on a Tuesday, and on Thanksgiving when the oven is full and you have four other things to finish, and on every morning when the difference between having biscuits and not having biscuits is whether they take five minutes or thirty.

If you want the from-scratch route with a rolled and cut biscuit, our Biscuit & Scone Mix is built for that, and it can be made dairy-free and vegan, which this one cannot.

What to Serve Them With

Breakfast. Split, buttered, with jam or honey. Or as a sandwich with egg, cheese, and sausage or bacon.

Gravy. The one people miss most. Sausage gravy over a split biscuit is the whole reason many people were looking for this mix.

Dinner. Alongside soup, chili, chowder, or a roast. They hold up to being dunked.

Shortcake. Split, filled with macerated strawberries and whipped cream. A drop biscuit makes a better shortcake than most shortcake recipes do.

Two other mixes worth knowing about, since the same method works for both: Cheddar Garlic Drop Biscuit Mix adds shredded sharp cheddar for the restaurant-style biscuit, and Hot Honey Drop Biscuit Mix brings sweet heat that belongs next to fried chicken.

Note the difference before you swap: Hot Honey uses 3/4 cup of water and bakes 12 to 13 minutes, not 1 cup and 14. Cheddar Garlic uses 1 cup of water plus 2/3 cup of shredded sharp cheddar.

What These Biscuits Contain

These biscuits contain milk and soy.

Milk comes from the buttermilk, butter powder, and whey in the mix. Soy comes from soy flour and soy lecithin. Both are core ingredients, not trace amounts, so this mix cannot be made dairy-free or vegan.

If you need dairy-free or vegan biscuits, our Biscuit & Scone Mix is the one. It contains no milk and no soy, you add your own butter and milk, so plant-based versions work. It makes a rolled and cut biscuit rather than a drop biscuit.

Eggs and tree nuts are not ingredients here, but Pamela's products are made on equipment that processes both.

Every Pamela's product is certified by the Gluten-Free Certification Organization, made in a certified gluten-free, peanut-free facility, and certified kosher.

Make-Ahead, Storage, and Reheating

They are best within an hour of baking. That is true of every biscuit ever made and it is not a flaw.

Room temperature: 2 days in an airtight container. Reheat before serving, since a room-temperature biscuit is a shadow of a warm one.

Reheating: 350 degrees F for 5 minutes, or a toaster oven. Avoid the microwave, which steams the crisp edge into softness.

Freezer: cool completely, wrap, and freeze up to 3 months. Reheat from frozen at 350 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes.

Freezing unbaked dough works well. Drop the mounds onto a sheet pan, freeze until solid, then bag them. Bake from frozen at 425 degrees F, adding 3 to 4 minutes. This is the move for holiday mornings.

Do not mix the dough ahead and refrigerate it. The leavening starts working the moment the water goes in, and a rested dough bakes flat.

Ways to Change Them Up

Cheese. 1/2 to 2/3 cup shredded sharp cheddar, folded in at the end.

Herbs. 2 tablespoons chopped chives, rosemary, or thyme.

Garlic butter brush. Melt 3 tablespoons butter with a minced garlic clove and brush the tops straight out of the oven.

Sweet. 2 tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon in the dough, then a honey drizzle.

Pizza crust, which is the tip on the back of the bag. Add parmesan, oregano, and basil, and press the dough out rather than dropping it.

Mini biscuits. Smaller spoonfuls, 9 to 11 minutes. Makes about 24.

Other Recipe Notes

Use cold water. The fat in the mix needs to stay solid until it hits the oven, which is what makes the tops flaky.

Stop mixing while the dough still looks shaggy. Overmixing is the most common reason biscuits come out flat or tough.

To freeze unbaked, drop the mounds onto a sheet pan, freeze solid, then bag. Bake from frozen at 425 degrees F, adding 3 to 4 minutes.

Recipe FAQs

Yes. These are drop biscuits, so you scoop mounded spoonfuls straight onto the pan with no rolling and no cutting. Dipping the spoon in cold water between portions helps the dough release cleanly. You get a craggier top than a cut biscuit, which is the point.

Almost always overmixing, or water that was not cold. Stop stirring while the dough still looks shaggy with a few dry spots, about fifteen stirs. And use cold water, since warm water melts the fat before it reaches the oven and you lose the flaky top.

You can, and many people did before a gluten-free biscuit mix existed. Pancake mix needs added fat and a thicker ratio because it is built for a griddle, not a hot oven. We have that version if you want it. This mix has the fat, leavening, and buttermilk already balanced for biscuits, which is why it takes two ingredients.

No. The mix contains real buttermilk, butter powder, and whey, so it contains milk, plus soy flour and soy lecithin. For a dairy-free or vegan biscuit, use Pamela's Biscuit & Scone Mix, which contains neither and lets you add your own butter and milk or plant-based alternatives.

About 12 biscuits from one 12.3 ounce pouch and one cup of cold water. For smaller biscuits, use smaller spoonfuls and bake 9 to 11 minutes for about 24.