Once you have a winning recipe that you love, it’s amazing how many different variations you can create. This savory brunch bread takes my super popular buttermilk biscuit recipe and turns it into a loaf of bread. Adding bacon, Cheddar cheese and fresh chives gives this tender bread a savory, salty note that is pretty much irresistible.
The key to making the basic batter for the bread is the same as for making biscuits. You slightly freeze your butter and grate that frozen stick of butter into the dry ingredients. This is so much easier than having to cut butter into the flour – just be careful with your knuckles! The batter itself is quite wet, just as with my buttermilk biscuits. Don’t worry about that and don’t over-mix the ingredients to try to compensate. Just know that it’s a wet batter.
Once you have the basic batter made, fold the bacon, cheese and chives in with a few turns of a spatula or spoon. I’ve used orange Cheddar cheese here so that I can see that delicious cheese morsels in the bread, but you can swap it out for yellow Cheddar or another cheese altogether. If you want to add a spicy note, you could use pepper jack cheese instead, or try Gruyère for a delicious nutty alternative.
If you’re going for gold, reserve a little of the cheese to go on top of the loaf. That gives the bread that gorgeous brown top and lets the lucky guests know that there’s cheese inside, which will just add to the anticipation of a warm slice.
This loaf does take almost an hour to bake, but it’s so worth it. Let it cool in the pan for several minutes before transferring the loaf to a cooling rack. There’s no need to let it cool completely and I doubt you’d have the will power to do so anyway. Slicing into this loaf while it is still warm is a real treat.
If you’re serving this to a crowd for brunch, I doubt you’ll have any left over, but if you do… toasting this the next day and spreading a little butter on top is a little slice of heaven. Maybe you should save a few slices just for that very reason!
Tried the bacon cheddar chive loaf. Easy to make and so delicious. I especially love it toasted with butter. Yum!
Tasted great – great use of the self-rising flour & extra buttermilk from the biscuit recipe. BUT, HELP! I made recipe following to letter your ingredients & instructions. When I folded in the last ingredients I thought gee, this is a lot of dough. I even went back to your instructions to make sure it was one loaf pan to use (it was). I put dough into loaf pan and it came up to top of pan. Even coming back and looking at your pictures, the dough looked like it was a little over half the pan. Well into the oven it went and barely 10 min went by and looking in oven it flowed over top of pan onto bottom of oven. What could possibly have caused this?
Hi Jim. I can only think that you might have been using a smaller loaf pan than I was using. Is yours a 2-pound loaf pan? 9″x5″ and about 4″ deep?
Hi Meredith, Yep, I measured it first because we have several that are slightly smaller (I learned a while ago to measure after I had made something in what I thought was a regular loaf pan (temp-tations) but was way smaller).
In any event, it turned out great! Since there is only the two of us I didn’t want to waste any I turned the last half of it into baked croutons. They were delicious on our Caesar salad & I vacuumed & froze the remainder for future salads.
Great thinking on your feet, Jim! Glad it turned out and had added benefits!
As a general comment, i really enjoy your posts and recipes.
As a specific comment, I am not someone who uses self rising flour. Then I have to go hunt down the conversion for making it to comply with the recipe. So, if easy enough, can you post the equivalent ingredients for folks like us who don’t have self-rising in the pantry. Please and thank you for listening.
Thanks for your comment, Elizabeth. I do have that conversion on my buttermilk biscuit recipe page, but obviously forgot to transfer it over to this page. Here’s the conversion for buttermilk and the self-rising flour for you, just in case:
1 1/3 cup of Buttermilk = 1 1/3 cup milk + 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice
2 1/3 Self-Rising Flour = 2 1/3 All-purpose flour + 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder + 1/2 teaspoons salt
I don’t have self-rising flour-only the regular. Can I use it?
Hi Jennie. If you don’t have self-rising flour, you can make your own by mixing the following:
To make 2 1/3 Self-Rising Flour, Combine 2 1/3 All-purpose flour + 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder + 1/2 teaspoons salt
ML
Made the Cheddar Bacon Buttermilk bread, ate it warm with homemade chicken vegetable soup ! Excellent! A real keeper
Can I use powdered milk,or even half regular and half powdered,trying to conserve regular milk.
Hi Lisa. I haven’t tried it with powdered milk, but I expect if you re-hydrated the powdered milk and then used it as regular milk, it would work.
This is bread was so delicious! Thanks for the recipe Blue Jean Chef!
This looks so delish, can’t wait to try! Any idea on cooking time if I were to make these in mini loaf pans to give to friends?
It depends on the size of your mini loaf pans, but I would suggest about 25 to 30 minutes and then check it with a wooden skewer to see if it is done. The skewer should come out clean when inserted into the center of the loaf.
Any wAy to make this work using gluten free measure to measure flour or gluten free baking flour?
Hi Dena. I am not a gluten-free baker, but check out King Arthur’s Flour’s biscuit recipe. That might help. https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/gluten-free-biscuits-recipe
So good with a plate full of scrambled eggs! Although Im in Maine I make Texas style baked beans often when I’m throwing something on the smoker. This is the Perfect complement with the beans. Thanks
Hi Meredith,
I would love to bake this bread, but as someone who needs to eat gluten free, is there a way to convert the flour by using a general gf flour mix and perhaps use xanthan gum to get it to rise?
Thank you!
Hi Marge. I’m afraid I am not an expert in gluten-free baking. You might check out King Arthur’s Flour and their biscuit recipe. It uses gluten free flour and xantham gum. https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/gluten-free-biscuits-recipe
I made this about a month ago. I didn’t use chives. we are on lock down and I wasn’t going to the store. But it fit perfectly in the pan. After it cooled a little (I couldn’t wait too long), My daughter and I took a bite at the same time—–We just looked at each other and said ” Oh my god”. It was truly awesome. I have never baked. Our family’s idea of baking bread is to open a can from the grocery store, so I didn’t have any hope for my skills. Thank you so much!! Thank you also for the pictures for each step. I really need that.
This was so delicious! I will definitely make this again and again.
I just made this today. It is totally decadent! I can’t even imagine what the calorie count is. I’ve shared with my neighbors to their delight. Next time I’m going to try making in the mini pans so that I can share with more of my neighbors. Thank you!
We love this recipe, especially toasted. I added a little extra bacon. I’m thinking that cooked, breakfast sausage bits, rather than the bacon, would be tasty as well. Everyone of your recipes that I’ve tried has been a winner. Thanks so much!
I have a question, can I freeze this bread? Thank you!
Hi Alla. Sure you can freeze it, but it is always going to be the best the day you bake it. For best results, I would warm it before serving. Wrap the loaf in aluminum foil and reheat at 350°F for about 20 minutes or toast individual slices before serving.
Sounds delicious. Can it be made in a 2-pound bread maker?
Hi Paula. You should be able to make this bread in any bread machine that has a quick bread function. The dough just needs to be mixed together, you do not knead the dough.
I don’t like bacon can you leave it out of this recipe? If so do I need to change anything else to compensate for less volume of dough?
Hi Nancy. You can absolutely leave the bacon out if you want. No other changes required.
I tried this when I first saw this recipe and it was Outstanding!
Can this be made in a bread machine?
If your bread machine has a quick-bread setting, you should be able to use it for this recipe, but I do think you would have the best results by baking it in the oven.
Can this be mixed together and refrigerated for baking the next morning? Thanks!
The baking powder in the self rising flour will start to activate as soon as it is combined with the buttermilk so for a light and airy consistency you don’t want to let the dough sit. You can either prep the dry ingredients and add the butter, egg and buttermilk right before baking, or bake the bread the day before and pre-heat it wrapped in aluminum foil to warm it up the next day.
This was great tasting
And pretty easy to make
I omitted bacon, too tired to cook it
However like another review, mine also overflowed my 9x5x4 inch loaf pan
I see from your photos that it came almost to top with maybe a little brown ledge along the side
Next time will divide maybe even use a 9×13 pan
Love, love this recipe! Made it as a side with potato soup and it went so well together!!! Going to make this again for sure!!!!
I am going to make this. But, I’d like to make them as big, individual biscuits. Could you recommend a baking time?
Hi Lisa,
If you want to make these as biscuits, just follow the biscuit recipe instructions and timing here: https://bluejeanchef.com/recipes/buttermilk-biscuits/
Wondering if this could be done with bisquick ?
This recipe has only been tested with self-rising flour so not sure if Bisquick would work. It might have other ingredients you don’t need in the recipe.
I really like it but the top split crack and seemed to fall apart easily. It falls apart like regular biscuits not like bread. Not sure if I did something wrong.
The bread will split on the top as it bakes and rises. But it should not fall apart when sliced. You could have over-mixed the dough or possibly baked it a little too long.
I made this bread for the first time, it turned out perfect, it tasted wonderful. Thank you so much Meredith, the instructions were so easy to follow. Again, thank you for a picture. Perfect recipe. I have watched you on QVC for years, I have tried several recipes on this site, all have turned out great.