I Tried 6 Popular Store-Bought Biscuits, This Is the One I’d Buy Again

Simply Recipes / Alison Bickel

If you had asked me before I had kids what brand of canned biscuits was my favorite, I would have looked at you smugly and said what Ina Garten says: “Homemade is best.” Now that I am much older, slightly wiser, and way more exhausted, I can tell you that homemade biscuits on a weeknight are simply not happening. Like ever. 

Would I prefer homemade biscuits? Absolutely! But the price I’d pay to make them while my young kids are on the loose is about two hours of post-dinner toy clean up. I’ll gladly take the help. Store-bought biscuits it is.

I may now be less bougie in practice, but I’m still very bougie in taste. Even store-bought ones need to be delicious and perfectly light. So I taste tested six popular canned or frozen biscuits, and I ranked them from least favorite to most favorite. I even had my kids weigh in—my youngest (Teddy, age two) only says a handful of words and my oldest (Charlie, age six) described one biscuit as “onion-y” (spoiler alert: there were no onions), so I'd take what they contributed with a grain of salt.

The prices are based on retail prices around the tri-state area in mid to late January 2023.

Simply Recipes / Sabrina Tan

The Best Store-Bought Biscuits, Ranked

6. Immaculate Baking Organic Flaky Biscuits ($7.29)

While I love that these biscuits are organic, the flavor wasn't my favorite. Though they are described as “buttery” by the brand, the fat used is palm oil. The texture was not biscuit-like and was somewhat doughy in the middle. I could visible see the layers in the biscuits, but they didn't taste as light and flaky as they looked. That said, my kids did love peeling the layers off one by one to eat them!

All that aside, these came in as Charlie’s favorite. He described them as tasting of “wood” and “cheese” (six-year-olds are weird) and summed them up as “just kinda yummy.” High praise from him! 

5. Mason Dixie Biscuit Buttermilk Biscuits ($7.49)

I wanted to love these frozen biscuits, but they were too dense for my liking and lacked the layers I think a good biscuit should have. In terms of taste, they were nicely balanced; I could taste the real butter and buttermilk, and they had no lingering chemical leavener flavor. 

Teddy chucked his biscuit so hard across the room, I thought he might break a window. I’ll count that as a no from him. Charlie was slightly more receptive and described these as “like focaccia, but without any holes.” That’s a terrible description and he'd never make it as a food critic, but bonus points that he tried this one! 

4. Pillsbury Grands! Southern Homestyle Biscuits ($4.43)

Ahhh, my childhood in a can! While popping open a can of these will never get old, my love for them may have expired. These were super salty and left a bad taste in my mouth, reminiscent of eating a spoonful of baking powder. The texture is more like a dense, crumbly scone than a biscuit. These were my husband's favorite. Besides life partners, he has questionable taste.  

3. ALDI Bake House Creations Jumbo Buttermilk Biscuits ($1.65)

I knew I had to try these. At under two bucks a can, they're quite a deal! They expanded so much in the can, they almost jumped out and looked a little wonky, perhaps even slightly fermented. Once baked, they looked much better but had a spongy texture, which I still preferred over the Immaculate Baking biscuits, which were doughy. Even though the flavor left something to be desired, for the price, they can’t be beat. These would work well for something like monkey bread.

2. Trader Joe’s Organic Biscuits ($3.99)

Holy! Flaky! Layers! Trader Joe's biscuits baked up to the perfect GBD (golden brown and delicious!) and had excellent flavor. They tasted buttery even though they are not made with butter and were pleasantly sweet. These take second place in my book, and I love the price!

1. Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit ($8.99)

These were by far my favorite, which seeing that they are the most expensive on the list, is probably no surprise to my husband. But hear me out. I once went to the original Callie’s in Charleston after a particularly rough evening out (before kids, obviously), and the breakfast biscuit I ordered there brought me back to life. 

Even these frozen ones live up to that hype; they are super buttery, not dense, and have a clean and simple ingredient list. They use cream cheese in the biscuits, which added a tanginess I love. My kids? Not so much. One thing to note: if you were hoping to make a biscuit sandwich, these are on the smaller size.

Got Leftovers Biscuits?

I learned while baking six brands of biscuits at the same time that you don’t have to bake the entire can. Like homemade biscuits, store-bought ones freeze well. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and place the unbaked biscuits on it. Freeze them for about 30 minutes until firm, then toss them in a zip top bag and then back in the freezer. You can either defrost them overnight in the fridge before baking or bake them straight from the freezer—add a few minutes of bake time.

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