We Tried 9 Canned Biscuits — This Is the Best

Biscuits are notoriously hard to make. Most people go years struggling through highs and lows to perfect a biscuit recipe, but there isn’t always a need for that. The best canned biscuits are beyond easy to make and can be an easy way to make breakfast or even dinner a special event. There are more than a few choices out there, so take a look at this ranking for the best biscuits you can find in a can.

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We tried:

• Pillsbury Butter Tastin’

• Pillsbury Buttermilk

• Pillsbury Honey Butter

• Laura Lynn Butter-Me-Not

• Laura Lynn Buttermilk

• Immaculate Organic Flaky Biscuits

• Annie’s Organic Flaky Biscuits

• Harris Teeter Jumbo Buttermilk Biscuits

• Trader Joe’s Buttermilk Biscuits

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Best Canned Biscuits

As you open the oven doors, the first thing you notice is the unmistakable smell of butter, followed by the doughy smell of a bakery. You pull the biscuit apart by one of its many layers and steam escapes, leaving a trail of actual flakes behind. Behold: the one and only canned biscuit that is actually flaky. Perfectly sized, and plenty rich without the addition of honey, this is exactly what should be sitting in a basket in the middle of your dinner table.

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Runner-Up

It should come as a surprise to nobody that Trader Joe’s has a hit on its hands. Where the insides of other biscuits feel fake and cotton-candy-esque, TJ's have spongy, doughy goodness. While other biscuits feel thick and rubbery and dry, TJ's is hooking you up with moist, crumbly layers. This tastes real, and there’s really nothing else to do but give it up to Trader Joe’s, which has proven itself over and over to be the master of the white-label game.

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It’s hard not to gasp a little bit when you first see a raw Laura Lynn Butter-Me-Not. The neon yellow chunks of (what must be) butter stick out like an alien life form, and there was a very real moment where we considered if the dough had actually spent a few too many decades past its expiration date. The end result, thankfully, is neither rotten nor extraterrestrial. Once baked, these guys are light, buttery, and full of delightful air pockets. We loved ‘em.

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At first bite, we were convinced these would be the winner. The honey-butter smell really fills the air when you remove them from the oven, raising expectations pretty sizably. The truth is, while full of honey-buttery flavor, these things are essentially just a larger version of our winner, but with far less flakiness. After an initially dreamy first bite, you’re left with a weighty richness that’s difficult to shake. This biscuit is heavy-duty. Bake at your own risk.

Without question, Harris Teeter has the biscuit that tastes the most real. The store's Jumbo Buttermilk is filled with pleasantly soft dough, plenty of air pockets, and is very much like a better version of something you’d find at a hotel continental breakfast. This is the absolute definition of average, so it’s not a bad bet. Those air bubbles really have us transfixed.

It takes a team of highly trained individuals (us) to discern the nuanced differences in the prepackaged food world. Upon first inspection Annie’s and Immaculate (the other organic biscuit in our taste test) are extremely similar, both in packaging and final product. Luckily, our expertise can’t be fooled. Although there isn’t a flake to be seen, Annie’s flavor and dough consistency are significantly stronger. This is a softer, more pillowy biscuit with far deeper flavor. If “organic” is a word you look for on every food package, reach for Annie’s.

Even in raw dough form, you can see that these biscuits are composed of multiple layers. Like the rest of the Pillsbury line, and unlike all the others, the flakiness really delivers. The only problem is the dough, which is bland, oddly textured, and simply doesn’t live up to the typical Pillsbury standard.

Laura Lynn is obviously going for something here, though we can’t seem to figure out what it is. Despite the fact that we baked these for the minimum amount of time advised by the instructions, they turned out as hard and crispy as a stale biscuit. Not a lot of flavor to be found here either, and while they function better as a drier dinner roll rather than a Southern-style biscuit, there are plenty of better brands on the market. You don’t need these.

Quite the performance Immaculate is putting on here. It really tricks you into thinking things are going well until the last minute. Comforting, buttery aroma wafting through your home as you bake them? Check. Pleasant moisture inside? Check. But flaky? Not even a little. Bland? Fully. Flavor? Kind of like a Saltine cracker without the salt. What the dough itself will remind you of: fiberglass insulation.