This Cracker Barrel Breakfast Menu Item Is A Disgrace To A Classic Southern Morning Dish

Cracker Barrel is known for its homestyle Southern food, serving up classics like meatloaf, country fried chicken, and its iconic dumplings. You can get breakfast, lunch, or dinner at Cracker Barrel, and there are lots of delicious breakfast items available on its menu. However, one classic that may seem like a safe choice is actually the worst breakfast item Cracker Barrel offers: biscuits and gravy.

Cracker Barrel's biscuits are already not good, ranking last in Tasting Table's list of fast food biscuits. They're often overcooked, dry, and stiff, doing a real disservice to the name of Southern biscuits. And the gravy only makes the dish worse. Tasting Table tried and ranked nine of Cracker Barrel's most popular breakfast items, and the biscuits and gravy came in dead last, more due to the gravy than the biscuits. They were too salty and incredibly smoky, as the little sausage bits included in them were poorly flavored. The gravy didn't impress in the texture department either, as it was thin and watery rather than nicely thick and creamy. We compared it to Alabama BBQ sauce — and while that sauce can be delicious, it is not well-suited to a biscuit, especially one as dry as Cracker Barrel's. Overall, the biscuits and gravy were a complete flop.

If you're getting breakfast at Cracker Barrel, there are many better menu options than the biscuits and gravy. Our pick for the best Cracker Barrel breakfast item was its buttermilk pancakes, which we praised heavily, saying they could be eaten with no syrup. However, we didn't have anything nearly as bad to say about any breakfast dish compared to the biscuits and gravy, and no breakfast items made Tasting Table's list of Cracker Barrel items to avoid (save for the fresh fruit). Therefore, any breakfast dish is really fair game so long as you forgo the biscuits.

If you really want biscuits, you're better off going to a different restaurant. Tasting Table ranked Popeye's as the best fast food biscuit, which will come as no surprise to Popeye's fans. It's airy and buttery, bringing a much better name to the idea of Southern homestyle biscuits. Of course, you can also whip up your own Southern biscuits, as there's really no chain restaurant that beats a fresh, homemade biscuit. Avoid the common biscuit-making mistakes, and you can whip up something that completely blows Cracker Barrel's dry biscuits out of the water.