This Classic Southern Sweet Treat At Buc-Ee's Is Not Worth The Toothache

Buc-ee's is famous for a delectable, savory lineup of barbecue, burritos, tacos, and sandwiches, but desserts are the underrated items you're missing out on. Well, not every Buc-ee's dessert. While Buc-ee's is a Southern-born roadside attraction, the classic Southern sweet treat that isn't worth the toothache is Buc-ee's pecan praline.

We tasted and ranked 20 Buc-ee's desserts according to flavor, texture, and value, and the pecan pralines came in dead last. A true Southern pecan praline is a thing of beauty, made of butter, brown sugar, and cream that's boiled into chewy yet melt-in-your-mouth mounds filled with chopped pecans. The crunch of the pecans and creamy pralines, combined with caramelized sweetness and nuttiness, is a flavor and texture explosion that Southerners are proud to call their own. Unfortunately, Buc-ee's doesn't do Southerners or these pecan pralines proud. Instead of a decadently crunchy yet chewy and creamy texture, these pralines felt like dried-out sugar pucks. They're easy to eat as you drive, as they don't crumble, but they were pure sugar. 

The biggest offense, however, was the one-note sweetness that quite literally hurt our teeth after a few bites. Pralines' main ingredient is sugar, but in order for the caramelized notes and richness from the butter to bring complexity to this sweet treat, pralines need a dash of salt. And Buc-ee's left this crucial ingredient out of the formula. We were thus left with a mouthful of sugar that completely overwhelmed any nuttiness from the pecans.

While a Facebook customer deemed the pecan pralines their favorite Buc-ee's dessert, customers on TripAdvisor were less than pleased with the quality and taste. One scathing review stated, "The praline I bought tasted terrible and did not at all taste like a real praline. It was small and thin with a few pecan bits in it." According to another TripAdvisor customer from Texas, Buc-ee's used to sell delicious and authentic pecan pralines from a local brand. However, Buc-ee's ousted the name-brand in favor of their housemade pecan praline. And, says the customer, "The ones they stock now are nasty and do not match the quality of" the other brand.

We think the pecan praline is a Buc-ee's dessert you should avoid at all costs, but that doesn't mean that you should leave empty-handed. Buc-ee's has plenty of other incredible pecan desserts. For example, Buc-ee's candied pecans ranked much more favorably, and you can find them hot and fresh in single-serving paper bags for the perfect road-trip snack. Of course, our number one Buc-ee's dessert is the small-batch pecan trio, featuring the candied pecans, white chocolate, and milk-chocolate-covered pecans. You can pair them with a fresh cup of joe from Buc-ee's coffee bar, which is surprisingly good and cheap. But perhaps the most iconic sweet treat from Buc-ee's is our favorite snack of all, the sweet, corn Pops-adjacent Beaver Nuggets.