9 Cracker Barrel Meals That Are Fully Loaded With Salt

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is a Southern-inspired restaurant chain that is well-known for its generous portions and classic comfort food dishes like pancakes, fried chicken, and meatloaf. With locations in 45 states, Cracker Barrel is a fixture across the country. Often located near the interstate, it's common for travelers to visit for a filling meal and the quirky charm of the country store.

When looking for a light or low calorie meal, it's unlikely that Cracker Barrel is at the top of your list. However, it is possible to find a few healthier options on the menu. What's more, the menu at Cracker Barrel is flexible, making it easy to mix and match entrees and sides — which is advantageous for putting together one of many tasty hidden gems like Bee Sting Chicken or Buffalo Buttermilk Ranch Mac n' cheese.

For those who frequent Cracker Barrel regularly or who need to keep their salt intake in check, it's also worth knowing that while the food is delicious, many of the entrees are fully loaded with salt. In fact, it can be tough to find menu options at Cracker Barrel that aren't loaded with at least half a day's worth of sodium; the large portions are partly to blame. If you're wondering how much salt is too much, the recommended limit for daily sodium (or salt) intake is 2,300 milligrams per day according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. With that number in mind, here's the lowdown on the saltiest dishes at Cracker Barrel.

If you love breakfast for dinner, you're in luck as Cracker Barrel offers breakfast all day. Surprisingly, some of the saltiest menu items can be found among the breakfast offerings. The New York strip Steak N' Eggs is one of the worst offenders salt-wise on the menu. It comes with a 10-ounce New York strip steak topped with buttery garlic sauce, two eggs, your choice of one breakfast side, and two buttermilk biscuits.

Order this dish and you'll start your day with a whopping 5,050 milligrams of sodium (or 220 percent of a recommended daily intake). If you add a premium side like the loaded hash brown casserole, one of the saltiest options, the total for the meal becomes an astounding 5,990 milligrams of sodium. That means, this one meal alone is well over two times the recommended limit for sodium from the Dietary Guidelines. To avoid loading up on too much salt, it might be worth grilling a New York strip at home, instead.

Another breakfast menu item in the Cracker Barrel classics section that features steak, but is also loaded with salt, is the Steak N' Egg Hashbrown Casserole. If you order this breakfast, you'll be served Cracker Barrel's Steak n' Egg Hashbrown Casserole layered with sirloin steak tips, scrambled eggs, melted Colby cheese, fried onions, green onions, and diced tomatoes — all with two buttermilk biscuits on the side.

Each component of this entree is stacked on top of each other. The effect is a tower of delicious breakfast foods that comes staggering when delivered to your table. The downside is that this high piled plate adds up to 3,370 milligrams of sodium if you finish the dish plus the two biscuits. That's well over a 1,000 milligrams more than the recommended daily allowance for sodium. A worthy indulgence on occasion, but potentially not worth turning into a regular meal. Luckily, hash browns are relatively easy to make in the air fryer if you want to try and make this one at home.

Many of Cracker Barrel's menu items have cutesy monikers like "grandpa", "grandma", or "country boy" that lean into the nostalgia of the classic comfort food — the Cracker Barrel Country Boy Breakfast is a good example. This breakfast entree features three eggs, your choice of a breakfast meat, biscuits with gravy, and two breakfast sides. In other words, it's a lot of food and hard to imagine even a "country boy" could finish it all.

The saltiest breakfast meats on the menu are the ham options: you can choose between country or sugar cured. If you add the country ham to your breakfast, the sodium tally goes up to 4,220 milligrams. Add the biscuits, gravy, plus two breakfast sides (hashbrown casserole and fried apples) and the total sodium for this country boy's breakfast can add up to as much as 5,895 milligrams of sodium. If you can finish this meal, that's almost three days worth of sodium.

Moving on from breakfast, the chicken fried chicken with sawmill gravy is one of the saltiest menu items from the Cracker Barrel Favorites section. This entree comes with a generous serving of homestyle fried chicken topped with a sawmill gravy as well as two or three sides and a duo of buttermilk biscuits or corn muffins.

Before you add the sides, the sodium tally already hits 2,910 milligrams which is more than an entire day's worth of sodium per the recommended limit. However, once you can add the sides to this meal the total sodium content really adds up. For example, say you choose the Dumplins (1,190 milligram sodium) and the macaroni and cheese (610 milligram sodium), the meal's grand total would be 4,710 milligram sodium. Double up on the crunch with breaded okra, and you've added yourself another 520 milligrams of sodium. In other words, one side is plenty enough, but after you have finished building this meal with it's complimentary two side minimum, you'll be scoring more than 200 percent over the recommended sodium limit.

If you're in the mood for Thanksgiving-inspired turkey and dressing, head to Cracker Barrel on a Thursday when it's offered as a lunch and dinner special. It's much easier than making it at home yourself. You'll get the turkey and dressing smothered in a gravy made from turkey base, plus your choice of two country sides and buttermilk biscuits or corn muffins. Basically, all the quintessential components of the Thanksgiving holiday meal but served up any time of year. And if you're feeling overwhelmed by the thought of prepping Thanksgiving dinner when the time comes, Cracker Barrel also offers a complete Thanksgiving meal to go.

Thanksgiving foods definitely don't have a health halo — in fact, most of us associate them with overindulgence. So, it figures that this entree is also one of the saltiest. The total for this dish is 4,180 milligrams of sodium or 187 percent of the daily limit when you include the two corn muffins, which are the saltier of the two bread options. For one big turkey dinner, you're getting close to two days worth of sodium.

As a Southern-inspired restaurant, of course fried chicken has a permanent place on Cracker Barrel's menu. The Southern fried chicken meal includes four pieces of fried chicken with honey, two sides, and buttermilk biscuits or corn muffins. This one is a whopping 4,730 milligram of sodium or 205 percent of the daily limit before you even add the sides. It's likely that Cracker Barrel's fried chicken is marinated in a salty brine first — which produces tender and juicy fried chicken, but also ups the salt content of the finished dish.

The sides range in saltiness from the steamed broccoli with only 35 milligram of sodium to others with over half a day's worth of salt like the Dumplins. If you're ordering this fried chicken, choosing a healthier side might be advised or else you'll rack up a sodium total for the meal that is as much as 300 percent of the daily limit.

Besides the fried chicken, the other dish that is fully loaded with salt is the New York strip steak meal. When you order this one, you'll get a ten ounce New York strip steak with buttery garlic sauce plus two sides and a choice of bread. Before the sides are added, the sodium total for this one clocks in at around 4,900 milligrams of sodium which is already over twice the daily recommended limit. Once you add the sides, you'd easily reach three times the limit (over 6,000 milligram) in just one meal.

What's more, Cracker Barrel added the option to order the New York strip steak as a combo with breaded chicken or country fried shrimp. Sure, it sounds like a delicious combo, but it's not doing your blood pressure any favors. Choosing either combo option makes the meal over 7,000 milligrams of sodium with the sides added. That's right — an unbelievable three times the recommended limit for daily salt intake. Of course, that only applies if you're actually able to finish the whole meal in sitting. 

Pickles are inherently a salty food since they need a salty brine to create the flavor and crunch we all associate with a good pickle. Combine an already salty food with breading and a creamy dip, and it's no wonder the country fried pickles made it to this list. This appetizer is made from dill pickles that are lightly breaded and golden-fried, then served up with a buttermilk ranch for dipping. Compared to the other appetizers on the "Barrel Bites" menu, this one is easily the saltiest of the bunch.

The country fried pickles have 3,440 milligrams of sodium alone or 150 percent of the recommended daily limit. While that sodium tally doesn't make them the saltiest thing on the menu, remember that it's just an appetizer so you're adding all that extra salt on top of a big meal. If you're thinking of ordering this one, split with some friends or family to avoid adding a hefty amount of salt to your meal.

Soup from restaurants is notoriously salty and Cracker Barrel's chicken noodle soup is no different. One of the reasons that the restaurant soups and canned soups remain so salty is because consumers like it that way. Too much salt isn't necessarily good for your health, but we've become accustomed to saltier foods. Plus, salt is important for enhancing the flavor of food and livening up otherwise bland foods.

While the chicken noodle soup is a lower calorie menu option, adding on a bowl of soup to a meal unfortunately tacks on a lot of sodium. Just one bowl of Cracker Barrel's chicken noodle soup has 167 percent of the daily limit for sodium. Cracker Barrel does offer the soup in a cup size which halves the sodium. Honestly, if you want more control over how much sodium is in your soup, it's best to make it at home. Homemade tastes better anyway and if you're looking for one ingredient that can make homemade chicken noodle even better, add a squeeze of lemon.