Ham & Cheese Butter Swim Biscuits

These decadent Ham & Cheese Butter Swim Biscuits are tender and buttery buttermilk biscuits studded with pockets of sharp cheddar, leftover ham, garlic and chives for an absolutely delicious breakfast or brunch recipe.

Ham & Cheese Biscuits

If you are looking for a rich and delicious breakfast, look no further! These Ham & Cheese Butter Swim Biscuits are divine. A quick and simple biscuit recipe that results in a tender and moist bread is studded with pockets of melted sharp cheddar, leftover ham and seasoned with garlic and chives.

Let’s not forget the butter. It is an absolute essential ingredient in any butter swim biscuit recipe. The bottom of your cast iron skillet or pan is covered in melted salted butter and the biscuit dough is spooned over top. This leaves with the most amazing buttery crust on the edges of the ham and cheese biscuits.

What to serve with breakfast biscuits

These biscuits have just about everything you need in a breakfast. Bread, meat and cheese. If you are wanting to serve these with a full brunch spread, here are a few great suggestions that would go wonderfully with these butter swim biscuits.

• Overnight Sausage Egg Casserole
• Fruit & Quinoa Salad with Citrus Dressing
• Goat Cheese & Pesto Veggie Scrambled Eggs
• Brown Sugar Bacon
• Winter Fruit & Goat Cheese Salad
• Cranberry Orange Mimosas

Leftover Ham Breakfast Recipe

Whether you made a beautiful Double Smoked Ham for the holidays or a smaller Air Fryer Ham, there is a good chance that you have some leftover ham you are needing to use up.

While these breakfast biscuits could be made with just about any proteins, such as bacon or sausage, I always seem to have leftover ham on hand and wanted to use it in these buttery biscuits. Ham is such a lean meat, so it goes so well with the richness of these butter swim biscuits.

One important piece of advice when using leftover ham in these biscuits, is to chop it up rather small. When you are biting into the tender cheesy biscuit, you don’t want a big chunk of ham. Chop your ham into about 1/4 inch size pieces.

If you don’t have any leftover ham, grab a pack of diced ham at the grocery store and you are good to go!

How to make ham and cheese biscuits

To get started, grab your favorite 10 inch cast iron skillet or a 9×9 deep baking pan. Add a stick of butter to the pan and pop it in the oven for 5 minutes while the oven is preheating. This will melt the butter without dirtying another dish.

Make the buttermilk biscuit dough by mixing the following dry ingredients,

• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt

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Next it is time to add the breakfast components to these buttermilk biscuits. When it comes to cheese, you could theoretically used grated cheese from the bag, but I promise you they will be so much better if you just take two minutes to cut up a block of sharp cheddar.

Add the following to the dry ingredients and mix together,

• 8 ounces sharp cheddar, cubed
• 2 cups diced ham
• 1/4 cup chives

Mix in 2 cups of buttermilk, just until the mixture is wet and well combined. Carefully spoon the biscuit dough over the melted butter in the pan. Be careful as the pan will be hot!

I like to encourage the butter to work it’s way past the edges into the center of the dough by pressing the dough down in a few areas to allow the butter to seep into the middle a little bit. This will help distribute the butter flavor and brown the top of the buttermilk biscuits beautifully.

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Easy butter swim biscuit recipe

It is as easy as that! I know the first few times I made butter swim biscuits, I was astonished at how simple the recipe came together, yet how amazing the texture was when they were baked. Just make sure your baking powder is fresh, and it will do it’s job to make the dough into a light and tender biscuit dough that is to die for.

The addition of ham and cheese just really puts them over the edge. If you aren’t a big ham fan, you could make these without the ham and you will have a wonderfully cheese garlic chive biscuit that is a perfect side dish to just about any meat. I love serving butter swim biscuits with this Traeger Smoked Pork Loin for an impressive and easy meal!

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Can I double the recipe?

If you are wanting to make a large batch of biscuits to serve a crowd you can absolutely double this buttermilk biscuit recipe. It’s fantastic for serving at the holidays or brining to a potluck. If you are wanting to make a double batch, just double the recipe and use a 9×13 pan.

More leftover ham recipes

If you are drowning in leftover ham after the holidays, we’ve got lots of amazing leftover ham recipes for you to try. From breakfast to dinner recipes, we’ve got soups, casseroles, pasta dishes, salads and so much more. You are sure to find a few great recipes to use up all that leftover holiday ham.