6 Cracker Barrel Appetizers, Ranked Worst To Best

Comforting, familiar, and ladled with Southern charm, Cracker Barrel typically calls to road trippers looking for something other than fast food. When you're not in a huge hurry, Cracker Barrel can be a great place to stretch your legs and get out of the car for a while — maybe hit the country store, chill in a porch rocker, or play a few peg games while you're waiting for your meatloaf and mashed potatoes. If you've ever visited one of these roadside country gems, you've likely experienced one of its iconic homestyle dishes like Chicken n' Dumplins. But Cracker Barrel also has a pretty solid appetizer offering — and we at Chowhound thought it was high time we gave them all a go.

As a caterer and food writer who regularly opts for appetizers over "real" meals, I'm well-versed in the ingredients and preparation methods of common finger foods and consider myself qualified to parse their nuances. Arriving with a growling stomach and an open mind, I ordered every dish from the Shareables category on the Cracker Barrel menu and took my time sampling four salty and two sweet appetizers. I considered everything from the crispness of fried coatings and the balance of savory flavors to the sweetness and overall appeal of the dessert options. Naturally, not every dish was going to land in the same place, and some had a little more going for them than others. After determining that all of them were pretty tasty, I took on the arduous task of arranging the six gingham-lined skillets in order from worst to best, right there on the varnished barnwood, country kitchen table.

If Cracker Barrel's Country Fried Pickles had been the only appetizer thrown down in front of me, I'd have been pretty happy. I love pickles, I love crispy batter, and I love ranch dressing, and this one had all those things; it just missed the mark in a couple of technical areas. That, and it wasn't in the same league as some of the higher-ranked Cracker Barrel appetizers I tried.

My first issue was the batter. I know adding cornmeal to the flour dredge is the secret to crispier fried chicken, but the technique doesn't really work well with pickles. The breading was much too firm, creating a crust that slid off the pickle rather than cradling it. It was also way too golden in color. I prefer a lighter, more delicate flour dredge on this kind of appetizer, so the pickle chip is the star attraction, not a supporting player. And the batter would have benefited from a little more flavor — a sprinkle of Cajun seasoning would have leveled up these fried pickles for sure.

My second issue was the pickle chip itself. The outer ring was firm, and the thickness was about right, but the coin inside was limp and lacked the dill and vinegar brine of a high-quality pickle. But again, not the worst fried pickles I've ever eaten by a long shot. They simply needed a lighter hand with the coating and a pickle with a little more personality to climb any higher in this ranking.

Another deep-fried appetizer that was good enough but far from the best, Cracker Barrel's White Cheddar Bites were something like a cheese curd, which I know well as a Wisconsinite. The breading was light and supportive, without taking over, and the texture was good. The problem was there just wasn't enough zip. I could have used a little sweetness in the batter and maybe some onion and garlic powder to round things out. 

Inside, the white cheddar cheese was sharp and bright with a good tooth, if not as gooey as I'd have liked. But the ranch dipping sauce was on point, with a zesty spice mix and a buttermilk-to-mayo ratio that paired well with several of Cracker Barrel's shareables. It just wasn't enough to offset the relatively bland exterior on this one. No, the White Cheddar Bites were not on par with cheese curds from Culver's, which sources its cheddar from a dairy farm run by three generations of cheesemakers, but they were still in the game. Their placement near the bottom of this ranking speaks to how good Cracker Barrel's other appetizers were.

A sucker for the pillowy, sugary goodness of this particular pastry, I have been known to polish off a grease-dappled brown bag of beignets without any help. During the seven years I lived in the South, I sampled this classic New Orleans delicacy every time the opportunity presented itself, and I became a bit of an aficionado. So my expectations were relatively low for this shareable from Cracker Barrel. To my surprise, these things were pretty good. They just weren't beignets.

True to their name, Cracker Barrel's Biscuit Beignets had more of a bready, fritter-like chew than the yeasty, airy insides of a traditional beignet. And they were fried to a golden-brown crisp, which made them taste more like a zeppole than a beignet. They were also triangle-shaped, heavily coated in cinnamon, and not enough powdered sugar. I also would have liked the butter pecan dipping sauce a little thicker and more syrupy. Admittedly tasty, it dribbled on my lap and shirt each time I dragged one of those suckers to my mouth. That said, if this appetizer had been called donut bites or cinnamon biscuits or something similar, I'd have ranked it higher.

Though I have little interest in fast food hash browns, I will order this shredded-potato breakfast side when I'm in a diner that I believe knows its business. I wasn't sure if Cracker Barrel qualified as one of those establishments until this skillet of Loaded Hashbrown Casserole Tots was thrown down in front of me.

Crispy, golden, and fried to perfection, these nuggets were piled high under a blanket of shredded Colby cheese and topped with a generous crumble of real bacon. After giving my first tot a quick dip in the ranch cup that accompanied my order, I sank my teeth into it and enjoyed the gooey, buttery interior. The shredded potatoes inside were soft and felt more like a cheesy mashed potato ball in my mouth, but man, it was good. If it had a little more definition and texture, I'd have ranked it higher. I can see why the Hashbrown Casserole this shareable was obviously derived from is one of the Top 12 to-go options on Cracker Barrel's menu.

I don't order onion rings as an appetizer very often, partly because the steaming onion slips out of the batter ring and scorches my chin more often than not, but also because I find this popular table snack heavy and overly filling. So I was not super enthusiastic about ordering the Onion Petals at Cracker Barrel. To my genuine surprise, this was by far the best savory shareable in this group. And it was neither skin-blistering nor appetite-spoiling.

Piled generously onto the checker-papered crock like a dismembered onion blossom, the petals were lightly battered, seasoned generously with garlic salt, and fried golden without being overly crisp like the Country Pickles. I assume the onions had been soaked in water or buttermilk before frying because they were mellow and sweet rather than sharp and bitter. 

Each petal was the perfect size for a single dunk in the accompanying Comeback Sauce — which catapulted this appetizer to a top spot in my ranking with its deliciousness. A mayo-and-red-chile dressing with Mississippi roots, the sauce was rich, bright, and dilly with a great tang and an even greater kick. I'm gonna take a swing at making my own when I'm done writing this article. It was so good.

Whenever I go out for breakfast, I struggle with whether to order something salty or something sweet. Mostly because I usually want both. Enter Cracker Barrel's Cinnamon Roll Skillet — a breakfast appetizer that can precede or accompany that Steak and Egg Hashbrown skillet and deliver the best of both worlds. Who knew this was even a thing you could do? Cracker Barrel, apparently.

Fresh out of the oven and still steaming, this shareable dish delivered notes of butter, cream, vanilla, cinnamon, and fresh bread. Nestled in a shallow pool of cinnamon and brown sugar syrup and generously drizzled with a cream cheese glaze, these six little masterpieces tasted as good as they smelled and stole my heart immediately. I polished off three of them before the check came.

I make cinnamon rolls at work fairly often, so I know how much time went into making this breakfast appetizer. The ratio of cinnamon and sugar to cream cheese frosting must be perfect, the dough must be proofed, the rolls must be moist but not soggy, and the tops must be browned but not crunchy. Cracker Barrel obviously knows these things too, because it got everything right here. Hands down my favorite shareable of this experience, the Cinnamon Roll Skillet is one I will definitely veer off the road to order again.

I visited the Cracker Barrel in Germantown, Wisconsin, and ordered everything listed on its Shareables menu. After asking the server to stagger my order so I could sample each item hot from the oven, I started with the savory and salty appetizers and finished with the sweet ones. At the time and location of my trial, appetizers ranged in price from $7.49 to $9.99. 

Though I'd been to Cracker Barrel many times, I'd never had anything from its Shareables menu before this ranking. I evaluated each appetizer primarily on taste, looking for a good balance of texture, spice, and flavor. I also considered the menu item's name and how true the product was to the description. I tried them all with and without the accompanying dipping sauce and set aside my personal preferences as much as possible when arranging the dishes from worst to best. That meant paying attention to more than whether I would personally order a dish again. I wanted to determine how well each appetizer delivered on its promise, whether the flavors worked together, and whether the sauce added anything worthwhile to the overall experience.