This easy and simple Vegan & Gluten Free Biscuits recipe features Vegan Pepper Jack Shreds and Jalapeno Peppers. They taste buttery, flaky, fluffy, cheesy – everything you want in a biscuit!
Did anyone say Gluten-free Biscuits?
When I posted these Spelt Sweet Potato biscuits, I knew I would get questions on if they will work with gluten-free flours.
I have a couple of gluten-free bread recipes using oats. Most of the gluten-free baking from the past two years relies on oat flour. This year, I am trying a hand at oat-free gluten-free baking like these Sweet Potato blondies and now this delicious gluten-free biscuits recipe!
These spicy savory gluten-free cheese biscuits passed hubby’s ‘I can detect gluten-free anytime I want’ test. He ate them all and did not mention a word about anything being different.
There is obviously a slight difference in texture compared to wheat biscuits, but most times he uses the difference in taste to be sure. And with all the Jalapeno, thyme and pepper jack cheese goodness in these, there was no way to detect that.
These cheese biscuits will be made again and again. Use any cheese shreds of choice and use any dried non-spicy peppers or onion flakes instead of Jalapeno.
Ingredients for making this Gluten-free Biscuits recipe:
- Rice flour is high in protein and a cheap gluten-free alternative to wheat flour. I use a blend of white and brown rice flour. White rice flour is heavier than brown rice flour and it makes the biscuits a bit heavier and denser so I like using a 1:1 mix to keep them on the lighter side.
- Potato starch helps to give these gluten-free biscuits a nice moist crumb. You can replace it with arrowroot starch.
- Arrowroot flour: I like using it mixed with tapioca flour for making bread and dessert recipes.
- Amaranth flour: Compared with other cereals, amaranth flour is much lower in carbs. Instead, it is rich in fiber making it perfect for healthy baking.
- Tofu for some added moisture. If you are not a fan of soy, use non-dairy yogurt, applesauce or sweet potato puree.
- Vegan Pepper Jack Cheese: I used Daiya shreds as they are wonderfully smooth in taste with a slight “Kapow!” at the finish. You could also make your own using this recipe.
- Japaleno peppers for some kick. You can use fresh or dried,
Tips and substitutions for making this Gluten-free Biscuits recipe
- The secret to soft and moist glutenfree and vegan baked goods? Steam which we trap by covering the biscuits with foil! Gluten-free bakes tend to dry out really quickly. You can see the difference between the baked with steam biscuits in the two pictures above and the drier looking ones in the rest of the post. You can squish these completely. If you capture the steam during baking, you get a higher rise and do not need the gum.
- I like to make rolls instead of biscuits. When making biscuits, the dough gets dryer because of additional flour added to make the dough easier to work with.
- The dough can also make a great pot pie crust.
- You can use non-dairy yogurt, like “So delicious dairy-free plain coconut milk or almond milk yogurt” instead of tofu.
- If you are looking for a regular vegan biscuit recipe (with gluten), try my Spelt Sweet Potato biscuits.
- You can double the potato starch and eliminate tapioca.
- Use cold tofu and milk directly from the refrigerator.
How to make this Gluten-free Biscuits recipe:
- Mix all the dry ingredients well.
2. Blend the tofu, oil, flax meal and almond milk into a smooth paste. Add the mixture to the dry ingredients. Stir to form crumbs. Use cold tofu and milk directly from the refrigerator.
3. Add the rest of the wet and mix to form a soft, slightly sticky dough. Add the Jalapeno and cheese shreds of choice.
4. Mix, and pat the dough onto a parchment-lined sheet. Use biscuit cutters to make biscuits or roll up into free form rounds.
5. Spray water on all sides of the biscuits. Then brush a little oil on top.
6. Preheat the oven to 425 F.
7. Lightly place aluminum foil on top of the baking sheet and bake for 17 minutes.
8. Remove foil and bake for another 2-3 minutes. I use a deep large pan and place the foil on top so it captures the steam better than placing the foil on top of a flat baking sheet.
9. Let your gluten-free biscuits cool for 2-3 minutes. Serve warm with vegan butter, gravy, soups. Hubbs enjoyed his with Coconut chutney.
These biscuits are being shared at Ricki’s wellness weekend, Slightly indulgent Tuesdays, allergy Free wednesdays.
More gluten-free and vegan bread recipes from the blog:
- Gluten-free Oat Focaccia-Style Pizza Crust
- White Oat Sandwich Bread
- Gluten-free Naan Flatbread
- Strawberry Sandwich bread
- Teff Oat Pizza Crust
- Mini Pull-apart Dinner Rolls
- Faux sourdough with fermented lentil and rice batter.
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Jalapeno, Pepper Jack & Thyme Gluten-free Biscuits Recipe
Makes 9-12 biscuits depending on size.
Ingredients
Dry:
- ¼ cup (1.39 oz) brown rice flour
- ¼ cup (1.41 oz) white rice flour
- ¼ cup (1.06 oz) amaranth flour or sorghum or millet or other gf flour
- ¼ cup (1.34 oz) tapioca flour/starch
- ¼ cup (1.41 oz) potato starch
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch or arrowroot starch
- ⅓ tsp salt
- 2 tsps baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ½-1 tsp dried thyme
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- a generous dash of black pepper
Wet:
- ⅓ cup (2.94 oz) almond milk or other non-dairy milk + 2 Tablespoons
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
- ¼ cup (21 g) firm or silken tofu or use non dairy yogurt or applesauce or sweet potato puree
- 1.5 Tablespoons flax meal
- 2 Tablespoons oil or /vegan butter, I use 1 Tbsp evoo + 1 Tbsp solid virgin coconut
- ¼ cup (1 oz) Daiya pepper jack shreds diced to make the shreds a bit small (or cheddar)
- ½ Jalapeno finely chopped or 2 Tbsp dried Jalapeno
Instructions
- In a large bowl, add all the dry ingredients and whisk well.
- Curdle ⅓ cup of non-dairy milk by adding a tsp of vinegar or lemon juice. Mix and keep for a few minutes. Blend the tofu, 2 Tbsp milk, Oil, flax meal into a smooth consistency. Add the blended tofu+oil into the flours and mix well to make crumbs. Add curdled milk into the flour mix and knead for 2-3 minutes. If the dough appears dry or stiff, add 1-3 tsp water. Add in the jalapeno and pepper jack and knead for a minute to distribute well.
- Drop the soft(not stiff and not too sticky) dough onto a parchment-lined sheet. Press with your hands to make a ½-3/4 inch flat rectangle. use a bit of oil or rice flour if needed. Use a cookie cutter to make the biscuits or hands to roll up into free form bun style biscuits. I used 1.5 inch round cookie cutter. Place biscuits half an inch apart on a greased or parchment-lined sheet or pan. Spray water all over the biscuits. Then brush the tops with melted vegan butter or EVOO. Lightly cover the sheet with aluminum foil.
- Bake in pre-heated 425 degrees F for 18-20 minutes until the tops just start to get golden. Remove the foil from the top at the 17-minute mark, if you like the biscuits more golden and crisp, and bake without the foil for 2+ minutes. Remove biscuits from the oven and let cool for 2-3 minutes. Slice open and serve with vegan butter, gravy, soups. If you bake them for the entire time without the foil, the biscuits might appear hard on the outside, but they will be moist and soft on the inside.
Notes
- The secret to soft and moist glutenfree and vegan baked goods? Steam which we trap by covering the biscuits with foil! Gluten-free bakes tend to dry out really quickly. You can see the difference between the baked with steam biscuits in the two pictures above and the drier looking ones in the rest of the post. You can squish these completely. If you capture the steam during baking, you get a higher rise and do not need the gum.
- I like to make rolls instead of biscuits. When making biscuits, the dough gets dryer because of additional flour added to make the dough easier to work with.
- The dough can also make a great pot pie crust.
- You can use non-dairy yogurt, like "So delicious dairy-free plain coconut milk or almond milk yogurt" instead of tofu.
- If you are looking for a regular vegan biscuit recipe (with gluten), try these Spelt Sweet Potato biscuits
- You can double the potato starch and eliminate tapioca.
- Use cold tofu and milk directly from the refrigerator.
Nutrition
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2013 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness in October 2019.
News from the Vegan community:
- WildlifeSOS is an amazing rescue and sanctuary that I wrote about earlier too. There are communities/villages in India and in neighboring countries, whose only source of income is Dancing bears. They steal the cubs from the mothers and train them from a young age with a ring and rope through their nose, sometimes filing down their teeth and nails too. the bears have a miserable life of torture, dancing, food scraps and die very young. When Wildlife Sos decided to rescue these dancing bears, they knew that taking away the current set of bears will just lead to the communities getting other bear cubs later from the forest or black market. So they came up with a plan to provide education and skills to the community to find other ways of earning to provide for their families. With the offers and help to each family, the families themselves surrendered their Bears and helped find other bears as well. Most dancing bears have now been eliminated from India, and the team is now trying the do the same for Bears in Nepal. See this video of Herbie who was recently rescued from Nepal.
WildlifeSOS is raising funds for this effort. This holiday season, please support this wonderful organization to help eliminate the practice of this miserable life for Bears.
vaedit
These looks perfect! Love the mix of flours you are using! Thanks for the tip about trapping the steam with aluminum ! So clever!
Mae
I stumbled on this recipe yesterday and was inspired by your suggestion to use it as a pie crust! It worked well as a crust! Considering it’s gluten free, I was surprised by how fluffy it was, especially considering I felt like it was stretched as thin as it could have been without putting holes in the dough. Not flaky like a typical crust, but still very yummy, especially with the thyme and garlic powder. I made a potato and carrot pie without a top crust. Very yummy! Great gluten free recipe.
Richa
oh cool idea. it would probably work out so well as a quiche crust or a savory chickpea veggie pie crust.
Anne Marie
Hi,
I am looking for some kind of biscuits to use for your Makhani vegetable pot pie recipe. I am still working thru your amazing, genius Indian cookbook (I’m challenging myself to make everything in it that can be made GF), but the new one arrived in Korea and is calling me, too.
I made the Spinach Rice and Black-eyed peas last night—with all of the garnishes, it was fantastic. Amazing and cheap dish!
If I adjust the spices, I think this will biscuit dough will work, right, on the Makhani pie?
Richa
Thats awesome!!
Yes you can use these biscuits on the pot pie. You might want to bake them separately as this recipe and place them on the pot just before serving.
Jordan Sage
Hi there, Richa.
This recipe looks awesome and I plan to try it tonight. 🙂
I am curious as to why gluten-free recipes tend to use such a variety of flours. Does using multiple types of flour in a recipe help in the cooking process, or is it just a matter of preference?
Thanks for your wonderful contributions to the mindful-eating community!
Richa
Hi Jordan,
Glutenfree flours do not have gluten, which in regular baking would help create strands to hold up shape, hold moisture and airyness, and keep it soft. One gluten-free flour cannot mimic all these properties, so you need some flours for bulk, need starches to keep it lighter/airy, some flours and starches to hold moisture, gums or other ingredients for softness and so on. You can get premade gluten-free flour blend that might be called all purpose gluten-free baking mix or blend or something like that, that already has a mix of flours and starches, and you can use that to substitute for when replacing in a regular flour recipe, or use to sub all of the flours and starches in a recipe like this. Hope this helps
Richa
Alison W.
I just love your website. You have incredible things to make, and I can’t wait to try this. It’s so hard to find things that are delicious and gluten-free. No need to miss biscuits now!
tony
can the potato starch be replaced with something else
Richa
use other starch like arrowroot.
Constance
Um, I am in love? Used coconut oil, a sweet potato instead of the tofu, and ditched the vegan cheese, and these came out AMAZING, if a little small. You’re the best, Richa!
Richa
Awesome! you can easily double the recipe.
Unknown
Do you think I could double the potato starch and not use the tapioca? I have an allergy to it, which of course makes gluten free baking very difficult.
Richa
yes, you can double the potato starch and eliminate tapioca
fittingintovegan
Yum, those look great – and thanks for the tip on covering GF while baking. I never get a rise while GF baking, but I will def try this now!
bubblegum casting
these look great and healthy to!
Glue and Glitter
Gorgeous! I haven’t tried any gf baking, and I admire you for being able to branch out with it. There’s so much science happening there!
Jurrica Reed
I so badly want a cookbook, you are THE BEST and most creative food blogger I stalk by far. I also love that there are so many gf versions–i’m intolerant, but i’m naughty around sweets and breads and pay for it big time later on– and they don’t call for xanthan gum like so many others. You’re amazing, happy holidays!
V Yel
Amazing looking gluten free jalapeno pepper biscuits I must say. Images given along with the recipe look great too! There are more vegetarian recipes for you to check out.
Virtually Vegan Mama
anything with jalapenos in it and I’m in 😉 looks yummy!
Jen
Divya Shivaraman
oh i love biscuits with butter or cream cheese too…for dinner or breakfast am in for this…lovely clicks da…sorry dear could not catch up long time, now am back on track
Nora
Richa, you, my friend, are the genius, the Albert Einstein, of mouth-watering vegan, plant-based cooking!
Lisa Kelly
want, want, want!
Torviewtoronto
looks wonderful
Maggie Muggins
Those are gluten-free? Wow, I need you to give me lessons because my gluten free baking never looks that good! Love the flavours you used, you can never go wrong with jalapeño 🙂
Anonymous
These look delicious!
I am not gluten free…I guess just use 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour or 1 1/2 cups? What do you think?
Richa
you can use these with gluten biscuit recipe. use spelt or whole wheat flour https://www.veganricha.com/2013/11/spelt-sweet-potato-biscuits-vegan-recipe.html
Richa
use non dairy yogurt instead of sweet potato puree. add jalapenos, cheese or other things.