These simple coconut milk biscuits are tall, fluffy, and dairy free: you won't even miss the butter! Made with coconut milk and coconut oil for a vegan twist on a classic breakfast recipe.
This recipe was originally published in 2016. It was updated in 2024 with additional photos, notes, and tips!
These homemade vegan biscuits are one of our most popular recipes of all time, and for good reason! Like traditional southern buttermilk biscuits, these feature flaky, pull-apart layers. Serve them warm with your favorite spread (looking at you, crockpot strawberry jam!), top with a plant-based gravy, or use them as a base for delicious breakfast sandwiches.
We're using coconut oil and canned coconut milk here in lieu of dairy products (no butter required!) The coconut oil mimics the rich feel and fall-apart texture that butter lends to a traditional biscuit, but we promise the biscuits don't taste coconut-y. You'd never guess these easy-to-make biscuits were actually vegan!
Ingredients
For a full ingredients list with exact quantities, scroll to the recipe card below.
Great biscuits are mostly about technique, but we do want to highlight a few ingredient-related notes before you get started:
- Coconut oil. We've tested this recipe with unrefined (virgin) coconut oil and refined coconut oil: Both work well here! Look for unflavored, food-grade coconut oil sold in its solid form (it usually comes in a plastic tub or large jar).
- Coconut milk. We prefer unsweeteened, full-fat canned coconut milk here; light coconut milk also works. Cans labeled "coconut cream" don't work quite as well: The "cream" tends to be thicker and can require some adjustments. You won't need a full can of coconut milk: Save the extra to throw into sauces or soups!
- Baking soda and baking powder are our primary leavening agents. Look for aluminum-free versions (otherwise your biscuits may have a slight metallic taste).
- A splash of lemon juice helps our leavening agents work more effectively and eliminates any lingering "metallic" taste they may have. You can skip the lemon if you like, but if your baking powder contains aluminum (or if you're just sensitive to metallic-y flavors) we recommend including it.
Chill the coconut products for best results
To ensure biscuits rise properly and develop flaky, pull-apart layers, it's important to keep the dough quite cold. In regular buttermilk biscuits, you'd use milk and butter straight from the fridge; for these vegan biscuits, you'll need to chill the coconut oil and coconut milk before mixing the dough. Measure your ingredients out ahead of time and store in the fridge (30-60 minutes) or freezer (10-15 minutes) until they're nice and cold!
Substitutions and Variations
- Add mix-ins. Stir a pinch of nutritional yeast, spices, or fresh chopped herbs (à la our herb biscuits) in with the dry ingredients.
- For sweeter, dessert-style biscuits, add a few teaspoons of granulated sugar or a drizzle of maple syrup to the biscuit dough (you may need to adjust the amount of flour to get the right consistency).
- Brush the biscuits with a bit of extra coconut milk or melted vegan butter just before baking for a glossier finish.
Instructions
Mix the dough
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl (Image 1, above).
Add cold coconut oil (2). Use a pastry cutter to cut the oil into the dough (3) until the coconut oil has broken into lots of small pieces, and the mixture resembles coarse sand (4).
Pro Tip: If you don't have a pastry cutter, use clean hands to work the cold coconut oil into the flour mixture. Work quickly to prevent the coconut oil from melting!
Add cold coconut milk to the dry ingredients (Image 5, above). Stir gently until the dough is not quite combined (6). The mixture should look a bit crumbly and rough at this point!
Shape the dough
Tip dough onto a lightly floured surface (Image 7, above) and use clean hands to gently pat it together (8). The dough will feel crumbly at first, but it will come together as you work it.
Fold the dough over on itself several times (9) as you pat it into shape: This will help build in as many flaky layers as possible! Pat the dough into a large rectangle, about an inch thick (10).
Pro Tip: Work quickly and handle the dough as little as possible to help the dough stay cold!
Cut biscuits into rounds
Cut the dough into rounds with a biscuit cutter or round cookie cutter (11). Once cut, you should see a fair amount of texture around the edges of each biscuit (12). This texture is a good sign that your biscuits will bake up with nice, flakey layers!
When you've cut as many biscuits as you can, fold any remaining dough back onto itself to form a new, solid piece. Continue cutting biscuits until you run out of dough.
Equipment note: We used a 3-inch biscuit cutter in these photos, which yields about 8 biscuits. You can make smaller or larger biscuits if you like (you may just need to adjust the bake time).
Bake
Transfer the biscuit rounds to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper (13). Place in a preheated oven and bake until golden brown (14).
Once baked, serve biscuits immediately or store baked biscuits in an airtight container on the counter for up to 3 days.
Four Tips for Excellent Biscuits
- Keep your ingredients very cold. The small coconut oil pieces in the dough melt as the biscuits bake, creating pockets of space that become pull-apart layers. Cold ingredients and minimal handling help keep the dough cold, which ensures the coconut oil stays piece-y and our layers form properly.
- Use a kitchen scale. Measuring ingredients by weight with a kitchen scale is much more reliable than measuring by volume (with cups). For best results, use a kitchen scale and follow the gram measurements in the recipe below.
- Preheat your oven. Make sure your oven is fully up to temperature before putting your biscuits in. If the oven isn't hot enough, the coconut oil will melt too slowly and the biscuits won't rise properly.
- Remember: The most important ingredient in baking is PRACTICE. Don't worry if your biscuits don't turn out perfectly the first time!
FAQs and Troubleshooting
If your biscuits look more "melted" than flaky, it's usually because 1) the oven wasn't hot enough yet or, more often, 2) the dough was too warm when they went into the oven.
For best results, make sure the ingredients - especially the coconut oil and coconut milk - are very cold when you mix them into the dough. Also, work the dough quickly and handle it as little as possible so the heat from your hands doesn't warm the dough up too much. It's also important to make sure the oven is fully preheated before you put the biscuits in - if the oven isn't hot enough, they won't rise properly.
And don't forget: As with many things, the most important ingredient for great homemade vegan biscuits is practice. If they aren't perfect the first time, make some notes about what went well, read back through this post and the FAQs, and give them another try!
A metallic taste can occur when you use leavening agents - like baking powder - that contain aluminum.
For best results, look for aluminum-free baking powder. If you're particularly sensitive to the metallic taste of some leavening agents, we recommend adding a teaspoon or two of acid (lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, etc) to your vegan biscuit dough: The extra acid helps create the chemical reaction that makes these biscuits rise, which can help eliminate that metallic taste.
We have only tested these vegan buttermilk biscuits with coconut milk varieties, but you can certainly experiment with other non-dairy milk alternatives if you like!
If you use a thinner dairy-free milk - like oat milk, cashew milk, or almond milk - you will likely need to add a bit of extra flour or reduce the liquid a bit to achieve the same texture.
Gluten is an important ingredient in any bread recipe, so we recommend using regular all purpose flour if possible!
If you must make these coconut oil biscuits gluten free, we recommend using a cup-for-cup gluten free flour blend. Keep in mind that gluten-free flours will perform differently than wheat flours, so your biscuits may be flatter (less flaky) and not hold their shape as well.
In our testing, cold coconut oil most closely mimics the taste and texture of regular butter in this vegan biscuits recipe. That said, you can certainly use your favorite substitute - like Earth Balance vegan butter sticks - in place of the coconut oil if you prefer.
Look for vegan butter that comes in sticks (as opposed to a vegan margarine spread, which is still soft even after refrigeration). Cut the cold butter into small cubes to make it easier to cut into the dough.
Like coconut oil, make sure any vegan butter is VERY cold, and know that each brand or variety will perform a little bit differently (so it might take a bit of trial-and-error to find your ideal balance!)
Yes! These vegan biscuits hold up very well in the freezer. Freeze in an airtight container for up to 3 months, then defrost for a few hours on the counter when you're ready to use them. Reheat biscuits in a warm oven for a few minutes to bring them back to life and help them feel fresh, even after freezing. If you don't want leftovers, you can also sub coconut oil and coconut milk for the dairy in our small batch biscuit recipe.
Any acid will work here! Lime juice, apple cider vinegar, or white vinegar are all good substitutes for the lemon juice.
🎥 Step by Step Video
Note: This video does not include the optional addition of lemon juice, and uses clean hands to cut the oil into the flour (as opposed to a pastry cutter). If you're using lemon juice, add it along with the coconut milk!
Did you make this recipe? Leave a comment and star rating below to let us know how it turned out!
📖 Recipe
Vegan Biscuits (with Coconut Oil)
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 32 minutes
- Yield: Makes 8-12 1x
- Category: Bread
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
These easy, flaky biscuits are made with coconut oil and coconut milk for a naturally vegan recipe.
Ingredients
- 120 grams coconut oil (about ½ cup)
- 230 grams canned coconut milk (about 1 cup)
- 300 grams all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting (about 2 ½ cups when measured correctly by scooping and leveling)
- 14 grams aluminum-free baking powder (4 teaspoons)
- 5 grams baking soda (1 teaspoon)
- 4 grams kosher salt (1 teaspoon)
- 5 grams lemon juice (1 teaspoon), optional
Instructions
Prep
- Heat oven to 425° Fahrenheit.
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper (or use a nonstick baking mat).
- Measure out coconut oil and coconut milk. If coconut milk has separated in the can, whisk to re-incorporate. Place both ingredients in the fridge (for at least 30 minutes) or freezer (for at least 10 minutes), until they are quite cold.
Make the Biscuits
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt.
- Use a pastry cutter to cut cold coconut oil into the dry ingredients, until you have a coarse, sandy mixture.
- Add cold coconut milk and lemon juice to flour mixture; stir until everything is not quite combined. The dough should be shaggy and fairly loose.
- Lightly flour a cutting board; tip the dough onto the floured surface. Gently pat the dough together until it begins to hold its shape, then fold it over on itself several times and pat it into a 1-inch thick rectangle.
- Cut dough into rounds with a biscuit cutter. Fold remaining dough over on itself a few more times, then repeat. Continue cutting biscuits until you have used up all the dough.
- Place biscuit rounds on the prepared baking sheet, leaving an inch or two of space between each biscuit. Bake at 425°F for 10-12 minutes, until biscuits are golden brown.
Notes
Use a kitchen scale. Measuring ingredients like flour by volume (with a measuring cup) is notoriously unreliable: For best results, use a kitchen scale and measure your ingredients by weight using the gram measurements above.
Why chill the coconut oil and milk? Small pieces of very cold coconut oil melt when the biscuits hit the oven, leaving behind pockets of space that ultimately create these flaky, pull-apart layers. For the tallest, flakiest biscuits, it's important to keep your dough as cold as possible. Using cold coconut oil in its solid form makes it easier to cut the oil into those tiny pieces; cold coconut milk helps the dough stay cold so the pieces don't melt until they're in the oven. Pro tip: You may want to stir the coconut oil a few times while it chills to prevent it from sticking to the bowl or container.
The most important ingredient is PRACTICE. It can take a few tries to get the hang of mixing and shaping biscuit dough. Don't worry if they aren't perfect the first time around!
Work quickly when dealing with biscuit dough so that the heat from your hands doesn't melt the still-solid coconut oil pieces.
With a 3-inch biscuit cutter, you'll get about 8 biscuits out of this recipe. With a 2-inch biscuit cutter, you'll get 10-12 biscuits.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 biscuit
- Calories: 329
- Sugar: 0.1 g
- Sodium: 322.4 mg
- Fat: 21.4 g
- Carbohydrates: 30.3 g
- Protein: 4.5 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
Jill Brady
These are the best biscuits I have ever made! If you are vegan don't worry about the honey or cheese or butter suggestions, just make the recipe the way it is stated and you will love them! Thank you for this recipe!
sparklegem
It is nice that you are offering a Vegan biscuit recipe, but showing photos of dousing the biscuits in honey, which is not Vegan, and exclaiming, biscuits to pile high with fried eggs and maybe some sriracha and also maybe some cheeeeese, is again not Vegan, and is repulsive to ethical Vegans.
Brittany
shut up. she made a dope ass vegan biscuit. let her live. be lucky she gave you anything in the first place. be grateful child
Carol
If you add the baking soda and baking powder to the liquid instead of the dry ingredients will that cut down the taste of these ingredients? I do that with the baking soda and it works. I’ve never tried it with the baking powder
Devon
I just made these and they are amazing!!!!!! My only substitution was almond milk for coconut milk. They are light and flaky, beautifully golden, and they taste buttery!! I froze my coconut oil for about 10 minutes just to make sure it stayed cold and I worked fast. Thank you for this recipe. These are so delicious!
Jackie @ Life As A Strawberry
So glad you loved them Devon!
Laura
This is a solid recipe in itself. I found it tasted a bit like oyster crackers though? Adding a bit of sugar and a lot more salt next time. Also, for anyone making this: if you don't care what they look like, you don't need to roll it out. Just combining and scooping onto a pan worked totally fine. Thanks so much Jessie for making this!!! Im glad this worked out so well: I avoid vegan butter because it contains palm oil, and thought I wasn't going to ever have a good biscuit at home again. Thank you ❤️
Jackie @ Life As A Strawberry
Hi Laura, thank you for the comment. Great to hear it worked out!
Charlie Joens
Absolutely amazing. Tender, melt in your mouth yumminess. I did not have coconut milk, so I substituted some homemade coconut milk yogurt. Will definitely make this again. I used the scraps to make pigs in a blanket for the kids, big hit.
Sue
These turned out wonderful. I reduced the baking soda shaped the dough into a rectangle and cut into an squares. I love that I can use coconut oil instead of butter or shortening. Thanks for the recipe!
Jackie @ Life As A Strawberry
Hi Sue! Thank you for sharing!
Amber C Southard
Best biscuits I've ever made. They cook better than my butter and buttermilk recipe. Best of all, the ingredients are non-perishable, so I can whip out biscuits anytime without making trips to the store.
Jackie @ Life As A Strawberry
Hi Amber, this is great to hear! Thank you 🙂
Denine C.
I made these biscuits this morning in place of vegan buttermilk biscuits in the hot for food "Vegan Breakfast Trifle" and I loved them.
They were buttery, flaky, just so delicious. I made them as you said except I left out the baking soda (because I've never been able to bake with it without tasting it), and it didn't seem to negatively affected at all.
I rolled, folded, and re-rolled the dough a few times as you would with pie crust to add to the flakiness and I baked them for 12. I love this recipe! So quick and simple and they taste so good, both on their and in the trifle.
Will definitely be making these again!
Michelle
I was excited at the ease of putting this recipe together but unfortunately all we could taste was baking powder & baking soda in the finished biscuits. Ended up throwing the entire batch out 🙁
I would recommend to anyone trying this out to use less baking powder & soda, even if the rising is affected.
Jessie
So sorry to hear this, Michelle! You can certainly cut down on the leavening agents if you're especially attuned to the taste. Can I ask what brand of baking powder you were using - were you using non-aluminum varieties? A strong, "tinny" taste can sometimes be associated with standard asking powder that isn't as pronounced in aluminum-free varieties, which is what I use. We make these biscuits all the time in a variety of forms and flavors and have never noticed a strong taste of leavening agents, but I can certainly add a note to the recipe as well.
Donna
Hi, I just made these and they turned out awful. No rising, tasting of b. soda and powder and greasy, no flake interior. What a bummer 🙁
Donna
Oh and I also used gf flour. It just isn't the same as the flour package said, ha, of course.
Jessie
Ah! I would guess that's the culprit, then - this recipe hasn't been tested with GF flour and it tends to be much more absorbent than regular flour, so the outcome would definitely be different!
Jessie
So sorry to hear that, Donna! We make these every few weeks and have never had a problem. Did you chill the coconut oil and cut it in carefully to preserve some of the pieces (that helps create the flakes)? Biscuits also sometimes have problems rising when they're rolled out or handled too much, which is why I suggest gently patting the dough into shape when it's just combined and folding it over on itself a few times to create some nice layers. Regardless of what biscuit recipe I'm using, I find that my technique usually has more of an effect on the outcome than the measurements. Baking soda has a stronger taste to me than powder, which is why there's just one teaspoon here, but if you don't like the flavor of leavening agents you can swap some baking soda for the baking powder or even reduce the leavening agents by a teaspoon or two - they won't rise as much, but you can pat the dough a little thicker and there isn't an enormous difference. Using quality coconut oil and coconut milk also help here. I hope that helps if you decide to give the recipe another try!
Kristine
The buiscuits came out wonderful. However the taste of the baking powder was overwhelming to me. Do you think they would still come out the same if I reduced the amount by half? Also side note your site freezes and crashes a lot and has lots of advertisements which keeps the page rolling up and down as they load.
Jessie
I'm glad you liked them! The baking powder is what helps the biscuits rise, so reducing it will likely result in flatter, denser biscuits. You could try a different brand of baking powder if you like, or replace some of it with baking soda. You could also replace the coconut oil in this recipe with butter (if you're not sticking to a vegan diet) to see if you enjoy that flavor more since the coconut oil does generally impart some of its own flavor. I'm sorry if the site froze - were you viewing the recipe on a mobile device? Some phones/networks can have a harder time loading than others, but I can certainly check in with my hosting provider and ad network to double check things on my end. You can also take advantage of the "jump to recipe" button at the top of every post to skip any ads and content and head straight to the recipe. Hope that helps!
Kristine
Thank you for your quick response. I will try to add the baking soda since I am vegan. And yes I was viewing from a mobile phone so went to my lap top and had no problem with viewing.
Brittany
My biscuits are in the oven, finishing up. This recipe was super easy, and took no time to prepare.
I used a wooden cutting board with parchment paper, and flour of course to keep the dough from sticking. I also used an old fashioned shot/bar glass. I ended up with 15 biscuits.
I also used 1/4 a cup of culinary coconut milk+ 3/4 cup of unsweetened cashew milk.
I borrowed from the Minimalist Baker by indented the tops and smearing with warmed vegan butter.
They took a little longer in my oven-20min. While I did not get the perfect results,they are super good.
Jessie
I'm so glad you like the biscuits, Brittany! Thanks for letting me know how they turned out!
Zoe
honey isn't vegan btw
Jessie
The honey is an optional topping and not mixed in with the biscuits! If you follow a strict vegan diet, you can certainly bake the vegan biscuits as directed and just use an alternate topping.
summercorfu
Hi! They look just delicious and I can't wait to make them RIGHT NOW, but... I have no coconut oil at home. Can I substitute it with olive or sunflower oil, for instance?
Jessie
If you're out of coconut oil, you can use cold unsalted butter! It's important that the shortening here be solid, as opposed to a liquid like olive oil, because you need to cut the solid oil or butter into the biscuit dough so that it melts in the oven and creates those nice, flakey layers. I hope that helps!
athleticavocado
The fluffiness of these biscuits is UNREAL! Can't wait to try!
Jessie
Thank you so much!