I am a HUGE biscuit fan and these Ham, Cheddar & Chive Biscuits are pretty fantastic if I do say so myself. Whether a side dish at dinner, served for breakfast with eggs or heck, even an afternoon snack… these are sure to hit the spot. Diced ham steak, lots of shredded cheddar and fresh snipped chives make for a great biscuit.
If you follow along here on my little blog, you may notice that I don’t do a ton of baking… cooking is more my jam. That is true with the exception of scones and biscuits which I do bake up rather frequently. I love this trio of ham, cheddar and chives which adds such great flavor to a basic buttermilk biscuit.
Theres a few tricks to getting a perfect biscuit and it starts with temperature. To get nice layers and a flaky quality to your biscuit you NEED to have cold ingredients. A bit before I start making biscuits, I toss the butter in the freezer to ensure its good and cold. In these biscuits I dice up a ham steak and brown it a bit. I place the ham in the fridge to cool it down before mixing it. You do not want to melt your butter or warm the egg or buttermilk.
This dough does start in a food processor with the dough blade. You’ll add the flour and baking powder to a food processor and pulse a couple times to combine. From there you’ll add in the diced COLD butter and pulse until the butter is broken up into pea sized pieces. From there the dry mix goes into a bowl. You’ll add the browned and cooled ham, shredded cheddar, snipped chives, salt and pepper. Mix to distribute and coat.
The buttermilk and egg will be whisked together and added to the dry ingredients. Another tip for a good biscuit is not to overwork the dough. You want to mix until just mostly combined. Its good to have a little loose dry ingredients. You’ll go ahead and plop the dough onto a clean surface. Fold the dough a few times until everything is incorporated. From here I like to cut the dough into 4 even pieces, wrap in plastic wrap and pop in the freezer for 10 minutes to get everything back to COLD.
Take out the dough and lightly roll each into approx. an 8 in by 4 in rectangle. Stack each piece pressing ever so slightly. Cut the biscuits into 6 mostly even pieces.
These bake up to be a pretty large biscuit, feel free to cut into smaller pieces. These will bake up at 400 degrees for about 22-25 minutes, or until perfectly golden. These are amazing straight out of the oven but I really LOVE them split in half and then toasted with butter. HEAVEN!
- 2½ cups flour
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1- 5 or 6 oz ham steak, small dice
- 1 cup shredded cheddar
- 3-4 Tbsp snipped chives
- 8 Tbsp COLD butter, diced
- ⅔ cup buttermilk
- 1 egg
- salt & pepper
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
- In a frying pan, brown the diced ham in a little drizzle of olive oil. Set in the fridge to cool.
- Add the flour and baking powder to a food processor with the dough blade.
- Add in the cold butter and continue to mix until the butter becomes incorporated and the pieces are about the size of peas.
- Place into a bowl. Stir in the cooled ham, cheddar, chives, salt and pepper.
- In a measuring cup mix together the buttermilk and egg. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir with a spoon until the dry ingredients are mostly incorporated.
- Pour the dough out onto a clean surface and gently fold a few times to incorporate the dry ingredients.
- Cut the dough into 4 even pieces, wrap with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 10 minutes to get everything good and cold again.
- Gently roll each piece out into an approx. 8 in x 4 in rectangle. stack the pieces and gently press down.
- Cut into 6 even biscuits. Bake for approx 22-25 minutes or until lightly golden.
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