5 Pillsbury Grands! Biscuit Flavors, Ranked

There are a ton of biscuit recipes out there, including many that are actually surprisingly easy to make, even if you don't necessarily consider yourself an excellent baker. But there are plenty of reasons why you may not want to make your own biscuits from scratch. Perhaps you just don't want to take the time to mix all those separate ingredients, or maybe you don't want to purchase them if you know you're only making one batch of biscuits. If that's the situation you're in, it may be better to buy Pillsbury Grands! biscuits instead. These ready-to-bake biscuits make your morning meals so much easier, and they can be ready in under 20 minutes with basically no prep work other than preheating the oven.

If you head to the dairy section of your local grocery store to find these biscuits, though, you'll discover that there are a few different flavors to choose from. I've selected five of these different flavors and ranked them on flavor balance and potency to give you a better idea of what you're getting in each package. Honestly, the differences between flavors here aren't huge, but having a good idea of what you're buying is important, especially as grocery prices continue to rise. Check out these rankings, and you can hopefully better decide which flavor to snag the next time you're at the store. Then, make sure to check out our ranking of other popular Pillsbury products.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of hot honey, no matter what brand it comes from. And since it seems to be a super popular ingredient right now, I wasn't shocked to find out that Pillsbury partnered with Mike's Hot Honey to create its Poppin' Flavor Mike's Hot Honey Biscuits for a sweet and spicy take on the original. I tried this flavor in the Southern Homestyle version of the product, which is fluffier and less layered than the Flaky Layers variety. The fact that this biscuit flavor ranks at the bottom of the list doesn't mean it's not a tasty product — rather, it showcases my level of disappointment in it. 

I thought these biscuits would be imbued with a decent amount of heat, but I was wrong. Yes, there's a hint of chili-forward flavor there, along with a touch of sweetness to make things taste a bit more complex. But it doesn't boast the swicy flavor profile I was truly hoping for.

Unlike a lot of other hot honey products, I think these biscuits could have pretty wide appeal. But that wide appeal is why I don't particularly like them: I wanted something with a bit more heat. This product ultimately doesn't deliver the level of flavor potency I would prefer in flavored biscuits, and I think you could get the same (or even better) result by simply drizzling your plain biscuit with a bit of homemade hot honey.

Generally, you can never go wrong with the original, and I think that's certainly the case when it comes to Original Pillsbury Grands! biscuits in the Flaky Layers style. There's a reason this is the standard flavor: It's just so versatile. Do you get a hint of butteriness in every bite? Sure. But it's muted and muffled, without many unique flavor notes to meaningfully stand out. Yes, you get that standard doughy biscuit flavor as well, but that's honestly present in every flavor that appears on this list.

For prepared biscuits, these things are pretty solid and deliver just enough flavor to keep things interesting. The reason I'd seek these out specifically is if I were making some sort of dish — like a biscuit-based breakfast sandwich — in which the other ingredients need to shine. The flavor of these biscuits can fade to the background, providing just the right amount of structural support without overwhelming your palate. But when compared to some of the other, more interesting flavors on this list, the original Pillsbury biscuits just aren't tasty enough to really elicit an excited reaction from me.

Now, we're getting into the interesting stuff for those who like a hint of sweetness ... without any of the (however subtle) spicy flavors that come in the Mike's Hot Honey version. I definitely liked Pillsbury's Honey Butter Grands! biscuits, which I also found in the Flaky Layers version of the product, even though they were not my absolute favorite of the bunch. They have a subtle sweetness that makes them more interesting than most of the other flavors listed here. I think this could work well if you're serving the biscuits with jam or in another sweet style, but it could also work well as a complement to more savory, salty flavors.

That being said, the Honey Butter flavor didn't rank higher on this list because it doesn't deliver quite the amount of flavor I'm looking for. There's that nice hint of sweetness, but it's not as much as I thought I would get in a product literally advertised as tasting like honey butter. And the buttery taste is negligible — without that sweetness, it would just taste like any other biscuit. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't try this flavor. It just means that true honey butter lovers shouldn't get their hopes up too much if they're expecting a burst of flavor.

The Pillsbury Butter Tastin' Grands! biscuits are probably what you're looking for if you want something rich. These really do have a more buttery flavor than the other varieties that appear on this list (although all of them are undeniably rich). These are also the Flaky Layers style of biscuit, so I feel like you get an even more intense butteriness between the thin layers. Keep in mind, though, that this buttery flavor doesn't actually come from butter — rather, it's from "natural and artificial butter flavor," according to the packaging. That may be a turn-off for some shoppers, but since I'm judging these biscuits on flavor rather than nutritional content, I'm not taking that into consideration here.

One of the reasons I think this is such a solid flavor is because it is more interesting than the original version of these biscuits, with added flavor that can really make your meal pop. However, since that flavoring is just meant to mimic butter, it's also quite versatile. Now, would I pile a lot more butter on top of these biscuits? Maybe not. But I think they'd taste great with anything else you'd pair them with, from fragrant fruit jelly to a simple, homemade sausage gravy.

The other Southern Homestyle biscuit variety I tried for this tasting is the Buttermilk flavor. Even though this flavor may seem pretty standard and ostensibly less exciting than, say, a hot honey-flavored biscuit, I actually found it was the best of the bunch. It's simple, but that's part of the appeal. You're not dealing with a bunch of extra flavors in these biscuits that complicate the flavor profile of the dish you're including them in. Instead, you get that fluffy, classic biscuit flavor, with a touch of tanginess to create nice contrast in your dishes. Since biscuits are often paired with rich, sweet, and fatty accompaniments, they often need a bit of acidity to balance them out — the addition of buttermilk makes a big difference here.

When you're trying to enjoy a biscuit all on its own, with very few other ingredients in the mix, then one of the other flavored biscuits on this list might be a more interesting option. But for inclusion in a whole dish, I think that the buttermilk flavor is the best option in this whole lineup.

Although the Pillsbury Grands! flavors in this lineup are not drastically different from one another, I ranked them according to overall flavor balance and potency. The best-ranked varieties on this list have a flavor I enjoyed that's perceptible enough to really stand out. Flavors that didn't provide enough of a pop of flavor are ranked lower. One factor I did not take into account was whether a flavor was represented by the Southern Homestyle or Flaky Layers biscuit style, since several biscuit flavors are available in both options.