Cracker Barrel's Best Menu Items — Ranked And Reviewed

Walk into any Cracker Barrel and you'll instantly find yourself surrounded by jam-packed shelves filled with candy, tchotchkes, novelty hats, and every other thing you definitely don't need, but can't help but want. The store portion of Cracker Barrel is an onslaught of options, some better than others, that in many ways mirrors the restaurant's menu. From all-day breakfast to family-sized portions, it's difficult to leave a Cracker Barrel and still feel hungry.

Volume, though, doesn't necessarily translate to quality. The chain offers plenty of variety, but some items rise well above others in terms of taste. Although it would be interesting to sample the entire menu, it would also take weeks to truly hit every orderable item. Instead, I picked out a few classic items and a few of Cracker Barrel's more unique offerings to rank and review. The aspects that guided my ranking are described in more detail below. Like the shelves that adorn the store at the entrance, there's a lot going on, but in the end, it was pretty easy to tell which menu items deserve a spot at the top and which are better relegated to the back.

I love desserts, so coming into this ranking, I was especially excited for the sweeter options on the list. One of those was the Peach Cobbler. The picture on the menu shows a small white porcelain bowl overflowing with flaky, sugar-encrusted pastry pieces and gooey peaches. Add in a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and it's easy to believe the restaurant's claim that this is "Sweet southern peach cobbler, like you remember."

Well, my memory of peach cobbler involves real peaches, not canned wannabes. While the pastry portion was good, it was a single, solid piece sticking out from the bowl. The ice cream was served on top, which meant digging for the peaches, a chore until you found out that the fruit waiting at the bottom came straight out of a can, and not a good one. I'm not anti-canned fruit, but this overly syrupy, artificial-tasting concoction was just plain bad.

At 530 calories, Cracker Barrel's Peach Cobbler is an empty promise at best and a wild disappointment at worst. The menu has plenty of other sweet options, so avoid this one at all costs.

If you need a clearer picture of how unappetizing the Peach Cobbler is, look no further than the fact that it was beaten out by not one, but two vegetable sides. Cracker Barrel is all about sides. The vast majority of meals come with two sides, and some come with the option of three. The list of choices is long, so I went for variety when ordering.

First came the green beans. Yes, they're green, and yes, they're beans, or at least they once were. What I ate was so thoroughly cooked that I was surprised they held their shape and didn't simply break down into a pile of green mush. Cracker Barrel bills these beans as being "slow simmered with a hint of pork seasoning," but unless "slow simmered" means cooked nearly to death, it's time to try a different preparation method.

While not nearly as texturally off-putting, I can't imagine wanting to order the Fried Okra again. Okra itself is an acquired taste and texture — think slimy — so the preparation matters. In this case, the pieces are lightly fried and paired with ranch dressing. The breading is crisp and light, which I enjoyed, and the ranch is a nice complement, but the veggie inside is still just a bland, slick bite. If you enjoy okra, this may be a great representation of the dish; otherwise it's not worth trying, considering there are many better side dish options available.

I honestly didn't think anyone could truly botch mashed potatoes. Potatoes are good, butter is good, and cream is also good. Put them together, and three goods should make a great combination, right? Still, somehow, Cracker Barrel botched this classic side.

Put simply, the potatoes are dry. This wasn't just a case of a single bad side, either, as multiple dishes came with potatoes, and each gave the impression that they'd been scooped out of their pot of origin and left under a heating lamp until the outside formed a near crust, even though they're made fresh daily. Appetizing.

The good news is that the peppery sawmill gravy is tasty, as long as you get to it quickly. As is a characteristic of all gravies, it congeals if left unattended too long, so the best course of action is to mix the gravy into the potatoes right away. It gives the starchy spuds a much-needed shot of moisture and prevents the gravy from solidifying. At almost 300 calories for a side portion, the Mashed Potatoes with Sawmill Gravy are certainly a choice, but not one I'm ordering again.

Add "country fried" to the front of any meat and it automatically becomes more interesting. In this case, it's true because while the Cracker Barrel website advertises using "USDA Choice steak," it's definitely the breaded and fried portions of this dish that save it.

Topped with the aforementioned Sawmill Gravy, the Country Fried Steak officially kicks off the "Fine, But Not Exciting" portion of this ranking. The steak is about the cheapest, thinnest cut of beef you can buy, but thanks to the preparation method, it's tender, if not a little dry. The breading layer could be thinner, but it contains good flavor and a crisp texture. This isn't a bad dish, but I want more. More steak, more juice, more flavor overall, especially from the meat. Clocking in at 600 calories, the Country Fried Steak is something to order if you've never had the dish before, and therefore, have no prior experience to judge it against.

When deciding if you want to order the Double Chocolate Fudge Coca-Cola Cake, the only real question you need to answer is whether you like thick, sweet frosting or if you're more into a soft, moist cake. If you're a frosting fan — as I am — then good news, this cake is sporting a heavy layer of fudgy frosting that I honestly loved. Unfortunately, the cake below is more of a disappointment.

Dry and not particularly unique, the cake doesn't live up to its impressive name. We've covered this Cracker Barrel cake before and it doesn't appear that it's gotten better over the years. If you're interested in a Coca-Cola cake, try a homemade one instead. With an impressive 840 calories per slice, I would still prefer some of the other sweet items on the menu, even if they don't fall squarely into the dessert category.

In an effort to maximize the number of unique menu items I sampled, I ordered the Classics Sampler, which featured a slice of Meatloaf, a bowl of Chicken and Dumplings, and a piece of Homestyle Chicken. It's a fun way to overcome order anxiety by trying three of Cracker Barrel's most popular dishes. In totality, the Classics Sampler was satisfying. The portions of each main dish were adequate and played off each other nicely. Still, one of the three dishes had to come in last, and it was the one I had the highest hopes for.

Chicken and dumplings should be a rich, homey, and warm blanket-by-the-fire culinary experience, filled with tender cuts of chicken and hearty dumplings, all held together by a thick, creamy gravy. Cracker Barrel delivers on the first two elements, with melt-in-your-mouth chicken and dumpling pieces that were both plentiful and large, but the gravy was a total letdown. In a word, it was watery. In the end, it's better to think of this as a soup because that's really what it is, minus the added vegetables. This dish was one element away from rocketing up these rankings, but I simply can't abide a thin gravy in a comfort food.

Another member of the Classics Sampler, meatloaf tends to be a divisive dish. Maybe it's the name, perhaps it's the presentation, or maybe your mom just cooked it too long, but regardless, a well-prepared meatloaf is wonderful to enjoy.

Cracker Barrel hits the right notes, but the overall execution falls flat. Made with tomatoes, onions, and green peppers, I found it to be on the dry side, with the sauce on top forming more of a crust rather than providing any additional moisture. The meat itself also contained enough fatty and chewy bits that it took away from the overall experience.

Still, the loaf is well seasoned and when paired with some properly gravied potatoes, makes for a nice bite. This and the Country Fried Steak are cases where Cracker Barrel might be best served by slimming down the menu. Both are serviceable, but hardly exciting. For a restaurant that does so much, Cracker Barrel could benefit from focusing more intently on a smaller menu, which, given the quantity of dishes currently offered, would still leave plenty of options for hungry customers.

I promise I'm not being lazy by ranking the Classics Sampler items one after another; it's just how things worked out. Ultimately, it was the simplest dish on the plate that performed the best. Fried chicken is almost always good. As long as the breading is crisp, which mine was, it's hard to go wrong. Cracker Barrel's chicken is juicy and comes to the table piping hot. Fried to a lovely golden brown, the breading is well seasoned and thick enough to provide a nice crunch without dominating the meat beneath.

If there's one area of critique for Cracker Barrel's Homestyle Chicken, it's that the chain exclusively uses white meat for this dish. If you want a leg or a thigh, you'll have to order the four-piece Southern Fried Chicken. If I'm being honest, I'd probably go that route simply for the sake of variety. The Homestyle Chicken is good, but in the poultry world, the chicken breast is not terribly exciting, so if you're going to enjoy good fried chicken, you might as well add some diversity to your plate.

Back to the side dishes we go with Fried Apples. Remember all of those unpleasant things I said about the peaches in the Peach Cobbler? Cracker Barrel comes close to making amends with its Fried Apples. They're not perfect; in fact, this dish still has a canned-fruit vibe, but the fruit is at least good. The apple slices are big and meaty, and the syrup they're swimming in is just as thick. Honestly, if you put these apples in a pie, I wouldn't complain.

That said, they're not perfect. I would have liked a more complex flavor profile in this side. The apples are flavored with cinnamon, but that's it. Brown sugar would provide a little extra sweetness and also deepen the flavors, but that's splitting hairs. This is a tasty, sweet side that I would definitely recommend. Don't think it's super healthy, though, at 210 calories, it's still right up there with the other decadent side options on the Cracker Barrel menu.

This is the point in the list where everything is worth reordering on a future visit. At the time of this writing, Cracker Barrel had more than 30 individual side options on its menu. Of those, six are potatoes in some form or another and that number goes up if you begin counting mashed potatoes with different types of gravy. In short, Cracker Barrel likes potatoes, but the best among them has to be the Loaded Hashbrown Casserole.

Topped with a ton of melty, gooey Colby cheese and a generous sprinkling of bacon bits, the Loaded Hashbrown Casserole is extremely savory and rich, but those are far from complaints. Each bite offers an excellent balance of hash browns, cheese, and bacon, making this side feel more like a complete meal. It's a bit greasy, but what good bacon dish isn't? The only kicker here is that the Loaded Hashbrown Casserole is a premium side, which means you'll need to pay a little extra to get it alongside a meal, but I'm happy to report that it's worth every penny.

The sides just keep rolling as we get closer to the top of the list. Cracker Barrel should consider an all-sides meal option with the Macaroni and Cheese as the central option. Despite the simplicity of this dish, it's not all that difficult to botch. Overcook the noodles and you have a bowl of cheesy mush. Fail to create an appropriately creamy cheese sauce and everything gums together into a dairy-centric nightmare jello mold. Thankfully, Cracker Barrel avoids these pitfalls and serves up a wonderfully textured cup of mac and cheese that has climbed high on past Mashed rankings.

Due to the hilarious volume of food I ordered for this review, my wife and sister joined me in sampling everything, and we all agreed that the Macaroni and Cheese was our favorite side. The Loaded Hashbrown Casserole came in as a close second, but there really was nothing to pick apart with this dish. If you're looking for a little extra flavor, you can turn to the Loaded Macaroni and Cheese, which comes topped with bacon bits, green onions, and Parmesan cheese. No one would blame you if you ate this side before your main course.

It's usually pretty easy to determine a number one item when I do rankings, but Cracker Barrel made it difficult thanks to the wide selection the menu offers. With breakfast all day competing against dinnertime favorites, there's a lot of ground to cover and a lot of unique flavor profiles to pit against one another. I tend to lean sweet, so I had a hard time not putting the Strawberry Stuffed Cheesecake Pancakes at the top of the list.

Two giant, super fluffy pancakes are folded in half taco style and piped full of sweet cheesecake filling before being topped with fresh strawberries, whipped cream, and powdered sugar. If that wasn't enough, this dessert masquerading as a breakfast is served with a side of strawberry syrup. If that sounds like a lot, it is, but you also get a side of two eggs and your choice of breakfast meat, in case you want another meal to accompany your main course.

The pancakes are fantastic: light, fluffy, and perfectly cooked. The cheesecake filling is tasty but definitely on the sweet side. Given everything else that's going on, making the filling a bit less sugary might give this dish a little more balance. The strawberry syrup is more like a thin jam filled with chunks of strawberries. It all works and is brought together by the fresh strawberries that are never in short supply. If you want a sweet breakfast, this one absolutely hits the mark.

Sometimes simplicity takes the day. As much as I loved the Strawberry Stuffed Cheesecake Pancakes, Cracker Barrel's straightforward Pot Roast is just a touch better. Slow-braised rib roast is served in a rich beef gravy, accompanied by carrots, onions, and celery. Like any other Cracker Barrel entree, you can choose your sides, but mashed potatoes are a natural pairing for this dish. I've already detailed my issues with Cracker Barrel's mashed spuds, but the beef gravy in this dish saves them.

The meat is tender, and the pieces are big but manageable without requiring a knife. The veggies are similarly sized and tasty, though I could stand for the carrots to be cooked a little less. Nonetheless, this is truly a comfort food. If the Mac and Cheese was the table's favorite side, the Pot Roast was hands down the top-rated main dish. It also feels the most representative of the vibe that Cracker Barrel puts out: homey, rich, and cozy meals to share with the whole family.

It would take a book or possibly even a few to rank and review every item on the Cracker Barrel menu. Variety is part of the chain's charm, and while the results are mixed, there are plenty of good options if you know where to look.

In choosing dishes, I aimed for variety while trying to focus on some of the chain's classics. I visited my local Cracker Barrel at lunchtime and ordered everything but the desserts right away. Once the dishes arrived at the table, I photographed all of the food before sampling in no particular order.

The evaluation was based primarily on taste and texture. Cracker Barrel did not have any knowledge of the review while preparing the food, and neither Mashed nor I were compensated by the chain for this piece.