Healthy Southern Buttermilk Biscuits made with Ghee

Growing up in the South with a grandmother named Peggy Sue, southern buttermilk biscuits were an important part of my life. It’s the Southern food that I would never be able to resist. EVER. So I set out to “health-ify” them. (A bit.)

I didn’t want to lose the essential flaky, butteriness of the biscuit. So instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I traded in regular salted butter for ghee. Ghee is clarified butter (aka. butter minus the water and milk solids.) If you want to know more about the health benefits of ghee read this, this and this.

Next I subbed out buttermilk for non dairy buttermilk made by combining almond milk and apple cider vinegar, because that’s an easy swap and it lightens these things up just a bit.

Finally I sweetened them naturally with honey instead of refined sugar, because there’s no need to have refined sugar in a biscuit. It makes them lightly sweet, while also highlighting the butteriness and saltiness of the biscuit.

Basically these are *slightly* healthier than your average biscuit, but mostly they are DELICIOUS and flaky and every southern grandma would approve.

This post was sponsored by Sprouts. Thank you for supporting the partnerships that allow Brewing Happiness to grow and exist. xoxo.

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Healthy Southern Buttermilk Biscuits

These Healthy Southern Buttermilk Biscuits are made with ghee, vegan buttermilk, and sweetened with honey - so you can feel good while treating yourself.

Course Healthy Junk

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 6 biscuits

Author Brewing Happiness

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup almond milk
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups all purpose baking flour, plus more for flouring surface
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons Sprouts ghee
• 1 tablespoon honey

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 425. 

2. Combine your almond milk and apple cider vinegar in a small bowl and set aside for 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, sift your flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. 

4. Spoon your ghee into the large bowl and use your hands (in a pinching motion), to mix the ghee and flour together. Do this just until the flour forms into small balls. (Don't over mix.) 

5. Scrape off the excess ghee from your hands into your bowl. Create a small crater in the middle of the bowl and pour in your almond milk buttermilk mixture, and honey. 

6. Use a spatula to incorporate the wet and dry ingredients. DON'T OVER MIX. Just mix until the wet and dry are combined. (Yes the dough will seem very sticky.)

7. Generously flour a clean surface and dump your dough onto it. Sprinkle a generous amount of flour on top of your dough, and flour your hands. Press or roll your dough into a 1" thick rectangular shape. Fold your dough in half, sprinkle more flour onto the top of the dough, and roll or press into a rectangle again. Do this same thing 4-6 times. 

8. After your dough is in it's final 1" thick rectangle, use a sharp knife to cut your dough into 6 square biscuit shapes. 

9. Layer a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray with cooking oil. Carefully transfer your biscuit to the baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, until the top is golden brown. 

10. EAT UP. 

Because I am apart of the “health and wellness world” (woof – I hate that terminology) I am subjected to endless opinions on what is healthy and what isn’t. Do we all remember when coconut oil was declared unhealthy by the American Heart Association? (SPOILER ALERT : It’s a fat. It always has been. So don’t chug it or something.) If I’m honest, it’s a part of my life that I don’t enjoy.

What is your opinion on caffeine?

I bet you don’t ever eat anything bad. 

Don’t judge me for what I’m eating!

If I’m trying to build muscle, it better for me to eat eggs with or without the yolks?

These are questions and statements that I get inundated with daily. And the truth is – I don’t know the answer to your question. Not because I am uneducated, but rather because your body is different than mine. Your body has the answers. I promise.

That doesn’t mean I don’t generally believe in the huge power that cutting out most processed foods, adding more plants, and finding healthy alternatives can have on the body. Those are things I believe in so completely that I’ve dedicated a whole blog to helping people achieve that very thing. It’s become my life’s work.

But do I care if you eat a hamburger when you’re hungover? Not really. You do you.

I say all of this to get to the point that I’ve become obsessed with ghee as of late. It isn’t a perfect health food. It is still butter. But I’m working on adding more fats into my diet to balance my hormones. So ghee has been my go-to to add into my matcha or to cook my eggs in, and it’s been working well for my body.

So when Sprouts (aka. my favorite grocery store ever) came to me with the news that they have a brand new product – Sprouts Brand ghee – in stores, I jumped for joy. I love Sprouts Brand stuff, because it’s always more cost effective and equally as high quality as any other brand. And I love ghee for all it’s lactose free buttery goodness.

Thus the healthy southern buttermilk biscuit made with ghee was born. It’s a recipe I am proud of. It’s a recipe that people will argue is not actually healthy. In which I will argue – people used to think margarine was the “healthier” alternative. So does anyone really know anything definitively about health?

Here’s what I do know is unhealthy. Stress. Worry. Obsession. Anxiety. Anything in excess.

But ghee? Coconut oil? Biscuits? Well there, the jury is out. And I’d say that if we do our best to treat our bodies with kindness, and learn to listen to what our body says works and doesn’t. Well, that is when we will know true health. Mentally and physically.

So make yourself a damn biscuit. And enjoy the depth and width of what it means to be *truly* healthy. xo.