Name: Soft & Fluffy Bonuts (Biscuit Donuts)
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 13 min
Yield: 32
Ingredients: 12 oz Biscuit Dough of Choice (1 Container); Butter Spray or Cooking Spray; Sugar Substitute or Regular Sugar for Coating

Jump to Recipe

Have you ever wondered what it would taste like if you took flaky biscuit dough, rolled it into a ball, deep-fried it, then covered it in sugar?

No? Well, at least now you know exactly what Bonuts are!

When I visited the fine city of Nashville, I found myself at a little restaurant called Biscuit Love. Which, as you could probably guess, sells a lot of biscuits.

But they are best known for their Bonuts.

As you can imagine, eating deep-fried biscuit dough coated in sugar is out of this world.

But eating deep-fried dough on a regular basis is not ideal for my diet, so I wanted to create my own slightly healthier spin on these delicious buttery bonuts.

And honestly, I love these almost as much as the real thing. I promise you can feed these to anyone, and they would never guess they’re low-calorie.

Nashville’s Bonuts (left) vs My Homemade Version (right)

These aren’t a high-protein or “macro-friendly” spin on Bonuts, even though most of the recipes on this site favor protein.

I wanted flaky biscuit dough and I was not willing to sacrifice the taste or texture, so I stuck with using regular biscuit dough rather than trying to make own version.

And while these may not be loaded with protein, they are super low-calorie: 45 calories to be exact. I can’t find the nutritional info of the Nashville Bonuts, but I’m willing to bet they’re much higher in calories.

With just 2 ingredients needed and only 10 minutes total cook & prep time, there’s no reason to not have these Bonuts in your life!

How to Make Bonuts in the Air Fryer

For this recipe, we’ll be using any biscuit dough of your choice (unless you want to make your own), and we’ll be cutting it up and forming donut holes from that.

Easy enough, huh?

Most cans of biscuit dough contain 8 total biscuits, which we can then cut into 4 quarters each to create 32 total donut holes.

Use a knife to make slices out of your biscuit dough, roll them into balls in your hands, and then place them in the air fryer.

Depending on the size of your air fryer, you may need to plan for multiple batches.

The Ninja Air Fryer I use was large enough for me to make all of my bonuts at once, but you want to be sure to not overcrowd your air fryer. The biscuit dough expands quite a bit when cooked, so if you don’t allow enough room between your donut holes, they will take longer to cook.

To be honest, I probably should have done 2 smaller batches instead. As you can see by the photo above, too many of my bonuts were touching, when in reality it should look like this:

We’re going to air fry the biscuit donut holes for 5 minutes at 350 degrees F.

After 5 minutes they will expand and brown very nicely, but they are not fully cooked just yet. If you flip them over, you’ll see that the underside is still slightly undercooked.

Remove the bonuts from the air fryer and place them in a large bowl.

Spray with butter spray (or any cooking spray you have) and then sprinkle sugar over the top. I use a zero-calorie sugar substitute to keep the calories a little lower, but regular sugar will obviously work great.

Toss to coat the bonuts in the sugar, then place them back in the air fryer with the undercooked side facing up.

Air fry for an additional 3-4 minutes at 350 degrees (the exact time depends on how crowded your air fryer is) and they will be fully crisped up and ready to go.

Since all of the sugar coating will have melted in the air fryer, these bonuts are going to be hot.

Carefully remove the bonuts from the air fryer using tongs and add them back to the bowl to toss them in sugar one last time. Since the biscuit dough is coated with melted sugar, the final sugary coating will stick no problem!

If you don’t have an air fryer, can you bake these in the oven?

You definitely can, but you’re not going to get that same crunchy exterior and soft interior that the air fryer provides. We want these donut holes to mimic deep-fried dough, which is what you get from the air fryer.

If you absolutely have to use the oven, you can follow the same recipe instructions but instead bake your bonuts on a baking sheet at 400 degrees instead. The total time should be roughly the same, but you may not end up with the same crispy exterior.

How to Serve Your Biscuit Doughnuts

If you want to just pop these bonuts into your mouth as-is like regular donut holes, I certainly won’t stop you. Personally, I love just enjoying them as-is.

But if you want to serve these up in the same way Biscuit Love in Nashville serves them, follow my lead.

When you order bonuts at Biscuit Love, they are served hot & fresh over a fruit compote. Since I’m all about keeping things simple around here, I just purchased a fruit spread to use as a compote.

I bought a “Super Fruit Spread” from Trader Joe’s, and it was a great addition to this recipe. The spread is essentially a compote made from cherry, pomegranate, blueberry, & grape. You can use any kind of preserves you’d like for this one!

Then, to top things off, Biscuit Love adds a bit of buttercream frosting on top. To mimic that (and keep things simple) we’re going to whip up a very simple cream cheese frosting.

The frosting is a very simple combination of cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla extract. Really, that’s it! It’s a little loose, but it tastes delicious.

You can use store-bought vanilla frosting, make your own buttercream frosting, or leave it off altogether.

Long story short: there is no wrong way to eat a bonut.

More Recipes for Donut Lovers

If you’re reading this recipe, you love donuts, and I can’t blame ya. If you want to make some other homemade donuts, check out some of my favorite recipes: