Short answer: a good homemade dog biscuit needs only three or four ingredients — a flour base (oat or whole wheat), one wholesome mix-in (peanut butter, pumpkin, sweet potato, or cooked lean meat), and a binder like egg or water. Roll it, cut it, bake it at 350°F until dry. No sugar, no salt, no garlic, no onion, no xylitol. That's it. Below are the three recipes we come back to, plus the ingredients to keep out of your kitchen entirely.
I'm Preston Smith, co-founder of Bully Sticks Central. We make single-ingredient chews for a living, so I'll be straight with you: baking is a great weekend project and a good way to control exactly what your dog eats. It isn't a replacement for a real chew. It's a supplement to one.
Why bake dog biscuits at all?
Two honest reasons. First, control — you know every ingredient because you put it there. Second, cost, if you're already buying oats and peanut butter. Baking also lets you work around a specific sensitivity, like swapping wheat for oat flour on a dog whose stomach doesn't like grain.
What baking won't do is scratch the chewing itch. Biscuits are gone in two seconds. Dogs are built to work at food, and that need is met by something like a single-ingredient chew — 100% real meat, fully digestible, no rawhide. Bake the biscuits for training rewards. Keep a real chew around for the other need.
What ingredients are safe in homemade dog treats?
- Flour base: oat flour, rolled oats, or whole wheat flour. Oat flour is the gentler option for sensitive stomachs.
- Protein: plain cooked chicken or turkey, no seasoning, no skin.
- Vegetables and fruit: plain canned pumpkin (not pie filling), cooked sweet potato, mashed banana.
- Fats: a spoonful of coconut oil or ground flaxseed.
- Binder: one egg, or water added a tablespoon at a time.
What should never go in a dog biscuit?
This part matters more than the recipes. Per the ASPCA Animal Poison Control and the AKC, keep all of these out:
- Garlic and onion (and chives, leeks, shallots). All alliums damage a dog's red blood cells. You'll find "cheesy garlic dog biscuit" recipes all over the internet — including, until today, on this blog. Skip them. Powdered garlic is the most concentrated and the most dangerous.
- Xylitol / birch sugar. Read the peanut butter label every single time. Xylitol causes a rapid, life-threatening drop in blood sugar in dogs, per the FDA.
- Chocolate, raisins, grapes, macadamia nuts. No exceptions.
- Added sugar and salt. Your dog doesn't need either.
- Raw dough with yeast. It rises in the stomach and ferments into alcohol.
If your dog eats something on this list, call your vet or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435.
Three homemade dog biscuit recipes
1. Peanut butter and banana biscuits
Ingredients: 1 ripe banana, mashed; 1/2 cup xylitol-free peanut butter; 1 cup oat flour; 1/2 cup rolled oats.
Method: Mix until it forms a workable dough. Roll to about 1/4 inch, cut into shapes, bake at 350°F for 20 minutes, then cool completely on a rack.
Notes: Four ingredients, no egg needed, and the banana does the sweetening. If you'd rather buy than bake, we cover the store-bought side in our guide to peanut butter dog treats.
2. Sweet potato and chicken bites
Ingredients: 1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potato; 1/2 cup finely diced plain cooked chicken; 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (or oat flour).
Method: Combine, adding water a tablespoon at a time until the dough holds together. Roll, cut into small bites, bake at 350°F for 25 minutes. Cool fully.
Notes: Protein plus beta-carotene, and small enough to use as training rewards. These are softer than the others, so refrigerate and use within a week.
3. Pumpkin and oat biscuits
Ingredients: 1 cup plain canned pumpkin; 2 cups oat flour; 1 egg; 1 tbsp coconut oil.
Method: Mix, roll to 1/4 inch, cut, bake at 350°F for 25-30 minutes until firm and dry. Cool completely.
Notes: This is the recipe I reach for when a dog's digestion is off. Pumpkin is fiber-rich and easy on the stomach — VCA Animal Hospitals has a good overview of why.
How do you store homemade dog biscuits?
Homemade treats have no preservatives, which is the point and also the catch. Cool them all the way through before they touch a container, or condensation will grow mold. Crunchy, fully dried biscuits keep about a week in an airtight container at room temperature, two to three weeks refrigerated, or three months frozen. Anything soft or meat-based goes straight in the fridge.
Want them crunchier and longer-lasting? After baking, turn the oven off and leave the biscuits inside with the door cracked for an hour to dry out.
How many treats can a dog have?
Treats of all kinds should stay under 10% of your dog's daily calories — that's the standard rule of thumb from VCA Animal Hospitals. The other 90% comes from a complete, balanced food. Homemade biscuits are a reward, not a meal, and they're not nutritionally complete no matter how wholesome the ingredients are.
One more note if you have a puppy: go easy. Puppy stomachs are sensitive to new foods, and it's worth reading up on what's appropriate for puppies before you start handing out anything new.
Where baking ends and chews begin
Bake the biscuits. They're cheap, they're fun, and your dog will lose his mind over them. Just don't expect a biscuit to do a chew's job. For that we make chews from 100% natural, single-ingredient meat, ethically sourced from grass-fed American and Argentinean farms, with nothing added and nothing to read on a label — because there's only one ingredient. 100% high-quality guaranteed.
Homemade treats plus a real chew covers both jobs. That's the whole system at our house.
This post was last updated at July 17, 2026 16:36
