How to Make Churro Donut Holes the Easy Way
Looking for an easy churro recipe that takes only seconds to make but leaves you with a stomach that’s happy for hours? My churro donut holes are so simple to make with just 3 ingredients (Pillsbury biscuits, cinnamon, and sugar) and don’t require the use of a pastry bag. Visit me at the lake and learn how to make churro donut holes the easy way.
Last week, I decided to create some yummy Cinco de Mayo recipes as food inspiration for all the upcoming fiestas that are just a week away. Because all of my Mexican dishes are on the savory side, I was pretty confident that I wanted to go the sweet route with any new additions I created for the blog.
I started by sharing my super easy, literally 1 ingredient, dulce de leche sauce on Friday. You must check it out!
It’s seriously the easiest sauce to make and goes great on everything from cheesecake to tres leches cake to vanilla ice cream to…
Churro Donut Holes!
AKA Churro Bites!
AKA Bite-sized pieces of deliciousness!
Whatever you want to call them, they are absolutely amazing! And the smell that takes over your kitchen!! That sensational scent of cinnamon and sugar perfuming the air is absolutely intoxicating.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the smell I’m referring to. It’s the same smell that causes our son, Zach, to make a beeline for the churro stand every single time we go to Universal Studios, or a carnival, or even a festival for that matter. It’s definitely addicting.
I knew I wanted to make a batch of churros to go along with my dulce de leche sauce but I wanted to create a recipe that was equally as simple to put together. Churros can be a little time consuming with first having to make the batter and then transferring it to a pastry bag before deep frying it all up. It’s not painfully hard to make from scratch but why not make it a little easier on yourself if you can, right?
The idea for these churro donut holes came from two other recipes I already have on the blog: my Easter donuts and cinnamon monkey bread.
I recently made the above-mentioned donuts for Easter out of Pillsbury biscuits and had an extra container of them in my refrigerator. They were a cinch to throw together and tasted absolutely phenomenal! And my cinnamon monkey bread is equally as delicious and has all the flavors of a churro, again, made with Pillsbury biscuits.
Before we go any farther, in terms of these being authentic Mexican churros, they aren’t! They are my own creation and a true example of taking the easy way out. So you can judge all you want but I’m just saying for the record that these churro donut holes are unbelievable.
How to Make Churro Donut Holes the Easy Way
Here’s what you’ll need:
1 can of Pillsbury Grands! Biscuits, 1 cup sugar, 4 teaspoons cinnamon, oil (for frying), 2 brown paper bags (optional but great for adding the cinnamon/sugar mixture on the donut holes)
The first thing I like to do when making this recipe is to get my oil heated up. You’ll want to use a large pot or Dutch oven to do so. Add about an inch of oil into your pot or Dutch oven and allow it to get up to 350 degrees. I like to clip my thermometer to the side of the pot so I can be accurate with this.
With the oil heating up, open up your can of biscuits and cut each one into four pieces like so.
Cut each of your four pieces in half again.
You will end up with 8 pieces of dough from each biscuit.
Form each piece of dough into a tiny ball.
In the end, you’ll end up with a plate of 64 tiny donut holes just waiting to be deep-fried. Oh my!
The last item to prep is your cinnamon sugar mixture. For the best results, I recommend using a brown paper bag to hold your mixture in because it serves double-duty. It easily allows you to shake the donut holes and coat them evenly with the cinnamon and sugar mixture, while also absorbing some of the extra oil from the donut holes.
I used two brown paper bags, one inside the other, just in case one decided to spring a leak. Pour your sugar and cinnamon straight in the bag.
Give it a good shake to combine the ingredients.
Note: If you don’t have brown paper bags, you can use a Tupperware container with a tight-fitting lid instead.
Once you’re done with your prep work, the oil should be ready to go. Remember, you’re looking for a temperature of 350 degrees for your oil. If the oil is too hot, the donuts will brown quickly and not be cooked inside. If the oil is too low, the donuts will end up soaking up a ton of oil while you wait for the browning to happen.
Place 10 to 12 donut holes in the hot oil. You’ll want to keep an eye on them because they will brown up super fast, like 1 to 2 minutes tops.
I used a slotted spoon and just twirled them around so they browned evenly on all sides.
Using the same slotted spoon, scoop out the donut holes from the Dutch oven shaking them a bit as you do so to try and remove some of the oil.
Place them directly into the brown paper bag or Tupperware container to coat.
Give them a good shake and that’s it!
Continue the process until all your churro donut holes are finished.
I highly recommend eating them with my dulce de leche sauce but they are equally as good standing alone.
One more thing: These churro donut holes are best eaten warm. I suggest placing them in the microwave for about 10 seconds if you have any leftovers and want to eat them at a later time. They don’t taste the same at room temperature.
There you have it. And you now know I basically cheated. I definitely didn’t make authentic Mexican churros today but I did teach you how to make churro donut holes the easy way…with the help of Pillsbury biscuits! Enjoy these yummy churro bites and let me know what you think about them in the comments below.
- 1 can Pillsbury Grands! biscuits
- 1 cup of sugar
- 4 teaspoons of cinnamon
- oil for frying
- 2 brown paper bags (optional)
- The first thing I like to do when making this recipe is to get my oil heated up. You’ll want to use a large pot or Dutch oven to do so. Add about an inch of oil into your pot or Dutch oven and allow it to get up to 350 degrees. I like to clip my thermometer to the side of the pot so I can be accurate with this.
- With the oil heating up, open up your can of biscuits and cut each one into four pieces. Cut each of your four pieces in half again. You will end up with 8 pieces of dough from each biscuit.
- Form each piece of dough into a tiny ball. In the end, you’ll end up with a plate of 64 tiny donut holes.
- The last item to prep is your cinnamon sugar mixture. For the best results, I recommend using a brown paper bag to hold your mixture in because it serves double-duty. It easily allows you to shake the donut holes and coat them evenly with the cinnamon and sugar mixture, while also absorbing some of the extra oil from the donut holes. I used two brown paper bags, one inside the other, just in case one decided spring a leak. Pour your sugar and cinnamon straight in the bag and give it a good shake to combine the ingredients.
- Note: If you don’t have brown paper bags, you can use a Tupperware container with a tight-fitting lid instead.
- Once you’re done with your prep work, the oil should be ready to go. Remember, you’re looking for a temperature of 350 degrees for your oil.
- Place 10 to 12 donut holes in the hot oil. You’ll want to keep an eye on them because they will brown up super fast. I used a slotted spoon and just twirled them around so they browned evenly on all sides.
- Using the same slotted spoon, scoop out the donut holes from the Dutch oven shaking them a bit to remove some of the excess oil.
- Place them directly into the brown paper bag or Tupperware container to coat.
- Give them a good shake and that’s it!
- Continue the process until all your churro donut holes are finished.
Oh my gosh! I’ve always loved churros! And living in California–there are several places to buy them. BUT–I love the idea of churro donut holes–and adding your amazing Leche sauce to add (calories) and best of all–flavor! Thank you again for making your recipes look so easy and doable for kids and grandkids, too. Always looking for something fun to do with the grandkids and teach them kitchen skills at the same time. Fabulous post!
Thank you!! You will love these and how easy they are to make. Just be careful because you can consume quite a few in short amount of time.