Reese Witherspoon Can't Stop Making This Foolproof Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe!

Reese Witherspoon has built a whole second identity around Southern cooking, one that shows up constantly in interviews, her Instagram feed, and her 2018 cookbook, Whiskey in a Teacup.

Most of it traces back to one person: her grandmother Dorothea, whose recipes Witherspoon has leaned on for everything from holiday desserts to the simplest weeknight staples.

A Recipe She Got From Her Grandmother

Among all of Dorothea’s dishes, one keeps showing up again and again in Witherspoon’s kitchen: a simple buttermilk biscuit she first shared publicly in the May 2016 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. It’s a small-batch recipe, making just eight biscuits, built for an actual weeknight rather than a big production.

Witherspoon has described her grandmother as someone who cooked with total confidence and very little fuss, and the biscuit recipe reflects that same straightforward approach. Nothing about it has been dressed up or modernized, which appears to be exactly the point.

Why It Keeps Making Its Way Back Onto the Table

Food writers who’ve tested the recipe consistently describe it the same way: easy, dependable, and worth keeping in permanent rotation. TheKitchn included it in a roundup of Witherspoon recipes readers keep returning to, calling it exactly the kind of dish worth having stored away for a simple dinner or a lazy weekend breakfast.

Part of the appeal is how little the recipe asks of the person making it. There’s no proofing, no resting overnight, and nothing that requires a special trip to the store, which makes it realistic to throw together on an actual weeknight rather than just admire in a cookbook.

Only Six Ingredients, No Fuss

The full ingredient list comes down to butter, flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk, nothing more complicated than that. One food writer who tried the recipe herself called it a genuine small-batch staple worth keeping in regular kitchen rotation, in a review that walked through just how forgiving the dough turned out to be.

The technique leans on cold butter cut into the flour until it forms small, pea-sized pieces, the same basic method behind most classic Southern biscuits. Buttermilk gives the dough its slight tang and helps it rise with a bit more lift than a plain milk-based version would manage.

The Recipe

Ingredients:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, divided: 2 tablespoons melted, 6 tablespoons cold and cut into small cubes
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tablespoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup cold buttermilk

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 450°F and lightly brush a baking sheet with some of the melted butter. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda, then work the cold butter into the mixture with a pastry cutter or your fingertips until it looks like small, pea-sized crumbs.

Stir in the buttermilk with a fork just until a rough, shaggy dough forms, then turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly until it comes together in one piece.

Roll it out into roughly a 6-by-10-inch rectangle, cut into 8 rounds with a 2½-inch cutter, and arrange them on the prepared sheet, rerolling any scraps if you want a few extra.

Brush the tops with the remaining melted butter and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until puffed and golden brown.