When a restaurant is known for its down-home cooking, it's certain to
serve up some southern classics. But do all of the side dishes aim to please at Cracker Barrel?
If you grew up hating vegetables, it was probably carrots cooked like this that
caused your distaste. First off, the choice of baby carrots was a mistake. They're good
served raw as a snack with ranch or hummus, but they quickly turn into mush when cooked
too long like the ones at Cracker Barrel; they had a grainy, soggy texture that was quite unpleasant.
The seasoning didn't help either. The carrots were begging for more salt, but instead, they seemed
to be doused in either white sugar or honey — something the already-sweet cooked carrots didn't
need. This side was just a quick trip through the food processor away from being baby food.
"Tastes like baby food." "Knock yourself out."
As a side, the dish comes with no chicken meat — it's just dumplins in sauce. The dumplins
themselves were properly made. They tasted well-seasoned with salt and were nice and fluffy.
Sadly, the sauce ruined the dish. It was over-thickened with flour,
which made it quite gluey. This counteracted the lightness of the dumplings and made the
dish seem heavy and excessively dense. If the sauce was supposed to be chicken-flavored,
the poultry didn't really come through. Even worse, there was a strange, almost
fishy aftertaste that the generous amounts of salt and black pepper couldn't totally mask.
This side was served as a blend of pineapple chunks,
cut-up strawberries, and whole blueberries.
The strawberries, especially, were incredibly tart, with no sweetness to speak of,
even though they looked beautiful and red. The blueberries had a little more sugar but
still tasted sour. The pineapple looked pale and unripe and was as bland as it appeared.
On the positive side, the pineapple was nice and crunchy,
and all the fruit did indeed seem like it had been freshly cut.
The main flavor you want from corn is sweetness, and this didn't have
much of it. To be fair, it wasn't corn season during this taste test. However,
thanks to food preservation technology, it's easy to access sweet corn all year
round these days if you just buy frozen corn that was picked at peak season.
Whatever the case may be, there wasn't much flavor to be found
here. The restaurant didn't do anything to elevate the corn with seasoning either.
The cooked broccoli in this taste test appeared to be completely unseasoned.
While this was a little disappointing, the broccoli still won out over a couple
of the other vegetables simply because it was properly cooked.
It appeared to be either blanched or steamed and was bright green, so it had clearly been cooked
fresh and wasn't sitting in a warmer forever. It had a perfect tender-crisp texture — not
crunchy and raw inside, but not too soft either. With no seasonings to cover it up, the earthy,
mildly bitter taste of the vegetable was strong. But even in the absence of salt,
the broccoli was still more flavorful than the carrots or the corn.
"I look forward to your report Mr. Broccoli."
Baked potatoes are so easy to make at home — just throw a potato in the oven for around an
hour and you're in business. That makes it frustrating when restaurants like Cracker
Barrel serve potatoes that are worse than what you could prepare in your own kitchen.
The loaded baked potato wasn't bad, exactly; it was a cooked potato topped with butter,
sour cream, bacon bits, and cheese, and all of those components worked well together.
Rather than being fluffy, the potato was firm, suggesting that it might have benefited from
a few extra minutes in the oven. The bacon bits were made with real chopped-up bacon,
but they weren't very crispy. The cheddar cheese was a tad rubbery. On the plus side,
everything had enough seasoning on it, so no extra salt was needed.
The turnip greens from Cracker Barrel had some excellent qualities, but they
were ultimately underwhelming. The best part was they were super tender and soaked in the
liquid from the bottom of the pot, which any greens aficionado knows is essential.
While the texture was perfect, the flavor of the turnip greens needed a little help.
Although they were mixed with a generous amount of country ham, the meat didn't impart a ton of
flavor to the cooking liquid. The greens also needed some salt and could have benefited from
a touch of acidity, heat, and sweetness as well. Without these balancing elements,
the bitter essence of the turnip greens was more noticeable than it should have been.
The taste of the hashbrown casserole was a slam dunk. The shredded potato made a perfect
starchy canvas for mild Colby cheese, a savory seasoning blend, and surprisingly assertive diced
onions. The cheese goop the potatoes sat in had a pleasantly creamy mouthfeel with no graininess.
However, it lacked a crunchy element. While the top layer of the casserole did pick up some
browning in the oven, it wasn't actually crunchy and the dish as a whole was quite soft. In fact,
the crunchiest component was the onion, which was still basically raw.
Like the baked potato, the mashed potatoes from Cracker Barrel weren't fluffy. Instead,
they were dense and slightly chunky, which isn't necessarily a bad thing
here. They packed a ton of potato flavor and had enough fat to make them pleasantly rich.
You can order these taters three ways: plain, with brown gravy, or with white sawmill gravy.
For this taste test, we chose brown gravy. This tasted less real than the potatoes,
as it had a strong beef bouillon and powdered gravy vibe. Nevertheless, the dish was yummy,
with a strong savory character and plenty of salt and black pepper.
The coleslaw served at chain restaurants is often pretty bad. Sometimes the cabbage is
wilted and limp, and the dressing is frequently overly sweet. Neither of these problems affected
Cracker Barrel's version of the dish. The blend of green and red cabbage was sliced thin, but
not so thin that it lost its crispy texture, and the slaw seemed like it had been made fresh. The
carrots added a hint of sweetness, and the mildly bitter flavor of the cabbage came through as well.
There wasn't an overwhelming amount of dressing. It was nice and creamy,
with a hint of sugar and vinegar. It balanced out
the veggies without taking over the dish or turning it into cabbage soup.
Cracker Barrel's biscuits had a buttery flavor and were very salty, with a hint of baking powder
in the aftertaste. They also seemed fresh, which is key for biscuits. They didn't have
any sweetness to them at all, and some people might prefer biscuits with a hint of sugar.
Texture-wise, these biscuits were more fluffy-bready than the flaky-crispy. They
were soft, with just a hint of chew, and were perfect for eating with soup or sopping up the
juice from turnip greens. Ultimately, they were a solid blank slate for absorbing other flavors,
but by themselves, they weren't the most spectacular biscuits.
The "fried" description is something of a misnomer, as these apple slices are
actually baked. The dish is sort of like a less-sweet apple pie filling;
the fruit is cooked with sugar and cinnamon until it's soft and delicious.
The cinnamon and sugar mixed with the juice from the cooked fruit to make a gooey sauce,
but the apples themselves still retained a hint of crispness and bite. There also
wasn't too much sugar; the natural acidity of the apples helped balance out all of
the sweetness. This was a warming and hearty dish that would be equally enjoyable topped
with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or next to a slice of country ham.
Taking Cracker Barrel's hashbrown casserole, cutting it into chunks, breading it,
and deep-frying it added all the texture and browning that the regular casserole lacked.
The flavor of the tots was basically the same as the original component — that is, delicious.
They tasted cheesier than the regular casserole version, but that might be
a flavor enhancement from frying and extra seasoning. Frying also softened
up the chunks of onion, which were better than the near-raw onions in the casserole.
The tot exteriors weren't super-crunchy, but they had a soft crispness and plenty
of browned flavor. Surprisingly, this side wasn't especially greasy!
Some vegetables, like carrots, do not benefit from being overcooked. Others,
like green beans, are amazing if allowed to cook slowly until
they're almost falling apart. That's how Cracker Barrel prepares its beans.
"I do very much enjoy cooking Thanksgiving dinner."
"And you're so good at it." "Thanks green beans."
The long cooking brought out a slight sweetness in the beans that you don't get from a brief dunk in
boiling water. While the beans weren't filled with pork chunks like the turnip greens, they actually
had a meatier flavor thanks to the pork seasoning. There was also a hint of onion and garlic powder
infusing additional savoriness, along with enough black pepper to give the beans more of a kick.
This soup has a complex mix of flavors and textures hidden in the rich and deep
broth. Swimming in the broth were chunks of tomato, peas, multiple types of beans,
and corn. The beans really asserted their flavor, adding a comforting starchiness to
the mix. The hefty amount of vegetable pieces made the soup feel quite hearty.
The seasoning of the vegetable soup was simple yet effective. There was enough salt to maximize
the flavor of the ingredients, and chunky bits of black pepper added zest to each bite.
Cracker Barrel's fried okra was crisp, fresh, and snappy. Despite being coated in breading
and fried, the green, springy flavor of the vegetable shone through. Sometimes breading
has a hard time sticking, but the coating used by Cracker Barrel had no problem staying adhered.
It had a light crispiness — not necessarily crunchy, but it wasn't soggy either. The
breading didn't soak up much oil from the fryer, so it didn't feel too unhealthy. Some of the okra
pieces were a little tough, but the flavor was so good that this wasn't too much of a problem.
Cracker Barrel's cornbread muffins tasted like they contained the barest hint of sugar,
but they mostly leaned into a savory flavor profile and were better for it.
The corn taste really came through in a powerful way.
The cornmeal imparted a slightly gritty texture to the muffins,
which was a good thing in this context. Although the muffins were hearty, they weren't heavy.
They aren't very oily either, indicating they were made with the appropriate amount of fat.
While the loaded white potato was a little too firm, the sweet potato was cooked until
its insides were soft and almost creamy. Even more impressive, the skin was tender and tasty,
unlike many baked sweet potatoes with skin that is often too tough and leathery to eat.
The long cooking time made the flesh of the potato almost candy-sweet,
and that was before the sugary toppings were added. The sweet potato was slathered in sweetened
butter and crowned with a toasted marshmallow that added a delicious s'mores vibe. The whole
package tasted like the best Thanksgiving sweet potato casserole you can imagine.
The mac and cheese was made with large, plump elbow macaroni cooked past al dente,
though it wasn't mushy. The pasta was coated in a ton of incredibly creamy cheddar cheese
sauce. It had a little browning on top that suggested it had been baked,
but it didn't stay in the oven long enough to dry out.
The sauce itself was luxuriously rich and had a pleasant American
and cheddar cheese flavor without being overwhelmingly sharp or tangy.
The texture was perfectly smooth, with no graininess whatsoever.
"Where's my mac n cheese!"
Steak fries typically have a lower ratio of crispy surface area to soft interior. Cracker
Barrel solved this problem by coating its steak fries in a thick layer of batter. The craggy
nature of the batter increased the amount of exterior crispiness considerably. They were
generously seasoned with savory garlic salt — the oil on the surface of the fries activated
the garlic powder in the seasoning, lending the fries an almost roasted garlic aroma.
The insides were just as delicious. The thick-cut potatoes tasted a lot more potato-y
than a typical shoestring fast-food fry. The fry interiors were also super fluffy and soft.
Sometimes the simple things in life are the best, and that's the case with
Cracker Barrel's pinto beans. They're a masterclass in how a basic ingredient,
when treated with the proper respect, can be much tastier than a complicated recipe.
These pinto beans had the firm texture and robust flavor of beans cooked from
dry. While canned beans are convenient, they're bland and mushy compared to dry beans that have
been rehydrated and cooked for hours on the stove. The dish was chock-full of tender chunks of pork,
and the meatiness worked in perfect harmony with the rustic flavor of the beans. Though
these beans weren't as soft as canned ones, the insides were still creamy and smooth.