Red Lobster Biscuit Recipe

When I was seven, I went to Red Lobster for the first time. After having their biscuits, I wanted them day and night. When I got older, I tried several different recipes yet none quite matched the initial glory or delectableness of the in-house Red Lobster biscuits. They were either too salty, too dry, or didn’t even come close to the right consistency. Eventually, I found a recipe that tasted exactly like them and I’ve been enjoying the biscuits as much as I can since then. There are some helpful hints throughout the recipe that help first time bakers or chronic cracker bakers (something I’m guilty of) (to note, a chronic cracker baker is someone who desperately loves biscuits yet overworks the dough into a hard cracker instead of a lovely biscuit). If you let the dough become shaggy and soft, you won’t have to make a trip to Red Lobster to feed your biscuit addiction; you can indulge in the secrecy of your own home!

Total Time:35-40 minutes

Yield: 12-14 Biscuits

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• Cooking spray (Pam)
• 1 ¾ cups AP (all-purpose) flour
• 1 TB (Tablespoon) plus 2 TS (Teaspoon) baking powder
• 2 ½ TS sugar
• ¼ TS salt
• 3 TB vegetable shortening at room temperature
• 4 TB cold butter cut into ½-inch pieces
•  1 ¼-2 cups cheddar cheese (depending on your obsession with cheese, I love cheese so I use 2 cups)
• ¾-1 cup milk (I like to use 2% milk and I tend to over mix biscuits and they become hard when baked. Using more milk helps me maintain dough fluffiness instead of having a cracker. If this is your issue as well, add up to 1 cup.)

For the garlic butter topping:

• 3 TB butter
• 1 clove garlic smashed or minced
• 1 TS garlic salt with parsley
• 1 TS chopped parsley

Garlic butter mixture with extra large pieces of garlic

Bake it:

• Take a large cookie pan or baking sheet and lightly coat it with cooking spray (I like to place tinfoil on my cookie pans for less clean up later.)
• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
• Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and mix together with a fork
• Add the shortening and mix with your hands until you have what looks like crumbs or the mixture has the consistency of sand

Shortening in flour mixture

• Add the butter and mix with your hands breaking up the butter until you have pea-sized pieces

Flour and shortening mixture with pea-sized pieces of butter

• Combine the cheese with the mixture
• Slowly pour the milk into the mixture until you have a shaggy dough (I like to put in some milk and then mix a little and continue that process until I’ve used all the milk. I find it makes for less kneading later and helps me to avoid making cracker-dough instead of biscuit dough.)
• Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place it on a cutting board. Gently knead the dough until you have a soft, combined ball. (I only knead a little bit, or sometimes, only mix the dough together in the bowl to avoid kneading the dough to death.)

Shaggy Dough after mixing

• Take about ¼ cup portions of the dough and place them on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart. (I am in love with biscuits so I always make very large portions, which gives me only 8 biscuits.  The recipe will yield about 12-14 regular-sized biscuits if you use the ¼ cup portions.)

Dough on baking sheet

• Place in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes or until they’re perfectly golden-brown
• While the biscuits are baking, make the garlic butter by melting the butter (either in the microwave or a saucepan over medium heat)
• Chop the parsley while the butter is melting
• Add the garlic, garlic salt, and parsley to the melted butter
• When the biscuits have finished cooking, take them out of the oven and immediately brush them with the garlic butter mixture (You’ll see in the photos my other weakness is garlic. I love to have larger chunks of garlic on top of the biscuits for a fresh bite. If you mince or smash the garlic, the pieces will not be as prominent but you will still get the garlic flavor. Red Lobster does NOT produce biscuits with the garlic chunks on top; they’re just my special additives.)

• Scarf down as many biscuits as you can have in one sitting. They’re exceedingly delicious!