Easy Savory Sour Cream Drop Muffins With Cheddar Leeks and Ham

This easy sour cream savory drop muffins recipe will be a massive hit with your family. The aroma the biscuit-style muffin gives off as it bakes is so delish. The spongy textured drop muffin has aged cheddar, deli ham, leeks, and kale, making it a perfect snack for school or work. It’s packed full of tasty goodness and makes a large batch. 

I was hit by a brain wave while baking savory muffins; I thought, why not simplify these? Because who likes muffin pan washing anyway? Enter the drop muffin; they are incredible. They are flavorful and easy to whip up in a few minutes. 

You will want a big baking sheet, as the big batch makes 30 biscuit-style muffins. They spread slightly, so they don’t need much room to bake. Every tasty drop muffin puffs up and turns golden as they bake. 

Your home will smell fantastic, and your family will thank you for making these chewy, savory drop muffins. 

If you love these cheesy drop muffins you will also want to try our fluffy jalapeno Havarti cheese biscuits!

Let’s get making these sour cream, savory drop muffins!

It would help if you worked in your largest bowl because this makes a large batch. It’s straightforward and comes together quickly. 

Step one is to add all the dry ingredients minus the baking soda to the bowl and blend well. 

From there, you will beat the egg well add sour cream, and water with baking soda. Blend this mixture well and make a well in the dry ingredients. Add this and stir. Add one cup of milk and finish mixing. We add the milk after the other wet ingredients because we don’t want it to curdle, which it would if added to the baking soda. 

Now you have a sticky muffin batter, and it’s time to add the extra ingredients. We used black forest deli ham, green leek stem, green curly kale, and McClaren’s Imperial Aged Cheddar Cheese. This cheese is a softer cheddar and has a very sharp flavor, which makes it ideal for baking. 

When the extras are incorporated into the muffin batter, scoop and drop the scoopful onto a parchment-lined baking tray. 

You can go wrong making these drop muffins. If you have a large gathering, you can make them slightly smaller and bake up for an easy appetizer idea. 

Just scoop up a teaspoon and drop it on the baking sheet. These are baked in a preheated oven of 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 15-20 minutes or until the tops are golden. They should spring back when you press your finger to the top. If you make little drop muffins, adjust the bake time as needed. 

These keep well in the fridge for up to four days. 

Ingredients:

Flour: This ingredient is essential in the structure of baking anything. White flour is used because it has a finer texture than other flours, making it smoother for the base of the drop muffin. 

Baking Powder: This salty leavening agent is used to help with the muffin’s ability to rise properly. 

Sugar: The sugar helps the muffin retain its moisture content. It also aids in making these savory muffins springy and chewy. The muffins are not sweet because there is so little in the recipe. 

Baking Soda: This ingredient on its own helps with this rising of baked products. 

Water: When we add the baking soda to the water, we get a bit scientific and create an endothermic reaction, which allows for better aeration in our baking. 

Milk: This dairy product is added to thin the muffin batter and adds moisture to the biscuit-style muffins. 

Egg: These gems of nature are needed to help with the overall structure of the baked goods.

Deli-Ham: This recipe calls for black forest deli-ham. It is salty, has a distinctive flavor compared to other hams, and is ideal for pairing with the other add-ins. 

Leeks: This onion family member can be found in most grocery stores. Milder than its wild cousin, the domestic leek is large and offers both a stronger-flavored white end and a lighter-flavored green end. For this recipe, we used the green portion. 

Curly Green Kale: This leafy late fall vegetable is ideal for baking as it doesn’t wilt down as much as spinach. It offers valuable roughage to the diet and adds more nutrition to the drop muffins.

Aged Cheddar Cheese: We used a soft aged orange cheddar cheese as it retains most of its flavor well when baking. The cheese’s melt-ability (McClaren’s Aged Orange Cheddar) is impeccable. 

Substitutions and Add-Ins for the Savory Sour Cream Drop Muffins

Not one to tinker with what works? That’s okay. Any deli ham or cooked ham cut into smaller pieces would work for this recipe. So, if you have leftover holiday ham, it would be ideal in these savory drop muffins. 

If you can’t find leeks, subbing in green onion stems will work fine for flavor. 

Not a fan of kale? It’s okay to use finely chopped spinach instead. Or omit altogether. 

If you can’t find the particular aged cheddar mentioned in this recipe, any very old cheddar with that deep, almost bitter flavor will hold up well to baking. Just be sure to shred it up before adding. 

Expert Tips and Serving Suggestions:

When making any muffin, it’s important not to overmix the batter. The aeration you achieve in a lighter mixing will create a more delicate, fluffy muffin. 

If you are looking for a fantastic appetizer for the holiday season, these baked-in smaller teaspoon-sized drops would be a tasty appetizer, hot or cold. 

These biscuits will not freeze well due to the add-ins. However, they will keep in the fridge for up to four days, so go ahead and enjoy them as a quick grab-and-go breakfast, add to the brunch table, snack on at school or work for lunch, or have one as an afternoon snack with a coffee break.