Cracker Barrel is a great place to get a lot of good food without breaking your budget. Every meal begins with a plate of biscuits and cornbread, which is served on the house. The Cracker Barrel Old Country Store lunch & dinner menus offer homestyle country cooking with quality ingredients prepared from scratch throughout the day.

You can create these meals at home.

You'll find everything you love about country cooking right here.

Country Dinner Plates

Your choice of any meat and two country vegetables plus Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits or Corn Muffins and real Butter.

• Fried CHICKEN Tenderloin
• Homemade BEEF Stew
• Grilled CHICKEN Tenderloin
• Half Pound HAMBURGER Steak*
• (Cooked to Order)
• Sugar Cured HAM
• Grilled PORK CHOP
• Hickory Smoked COUNTRY HAM
• Farm-Raised CATFISH Fillet
• (Deep Fried or Spicy Grilled)

Country Vegetables n' Sides

• Whole Kernel Corn
• Country Green Beans
• Sweet Whole Baby Carrots
• Fried Apples
• Macaroni n' Cheese
• Apple Sauce
• Pinto Beans
• Dumplins
• Turnip Greens
• Cole Slaw
• Steak Fries
• Mashed Potatoes
• Breaded Fried Okra
• Hashbrown Casserole
• Seasoned Rice

I like to cook up a bunch of side dishes on the weekend and have them on hand to microwave quickly during the week for dinner or pack in my lunch to take to work. I found some really cheap food storage containers at the dollar store. I bought a bunch that were the same size so that they would stack neatly together in my refrigerator. That is the key to my system. I can grab the whole stack of side dishes and just dip out what I want and microwave it on a plate.

You don't have to spend a whole day cooking to get these side dishes turned out pretty quickly.

Whole Kernel - just open a can and dump into one of your plastic containers

Country Green Beans

1/4 lb. sliced bacon or country ham bits
3 (14 1/2 oz.) cans whole green beans, with liquid
1/4 yellow onion
1 tsp. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly-ground black pepper

In a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, cook bacon until lightly brown but not crisp. When bacon has browned, add green beans. Add salt, sugar and pepper and mix well. Place onion on top of green beans. Cover saucepan with a lid and bring to a light boil. Turn heat down to low and simmer beans for 45 minutes. Or put everything in the crockpot and cook all day.

Sweet Whole Baby Carrots

2 lbs fresh baby carrots
1 t salt
1 T sugar
2 T margarine

Rinse carrots and place in a 2-quart sauce pan. Pour enough water in sauce pan to just cover the top of the carrots. Cover carrots with a lid, place on medium heat and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes until the carrots are tender when pricked with a fork. When carrots start to become tender pour half of the water off carrots and add salt, sugar and margarine. Place lid on pan and cook until completely tender but not mushy. More salt may be added if needed.

Serve carrots along side your favorite entree. The kids will enjoy the little baby carrots. For some additional flair you might want to substitute brown sugar, and a dash of nutmeg will do wonders. This recipe yields 4 to 6 servings.

Fried Apples

1/4 cup bacon drippings OR real butter
6 tart apples - sliced
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 dash nutmeg

In a large skillet, melt bacon drippings. Place apples evenly over skillet bottom. Sprinkle lemon juice over them, then brown sugar, then salt. Cover and cook over low heat for 15 minutes until apples are tender and juicy. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg.


Serve warm as side dish or dessert. Refrigerate to use in a few days or freeze.

Macaroni n Cheese

I usually use the cheap version out of the box.

You can get as fancy as you want with this one.

Apple Sauce - just open a jar and put into your storage container.

Pinto Beans

1 Pound ham hocks or country ham
1 Tablespoon sugar
Water, to cover
2 Cups dry pinto beans, sorted
1-1/2 Teaspoons salt

Cook ham hocks and sugar covered with water. Cook on simmer for a couple hours. When meat is tender pull apart with 2 forks to separate meat from fat, skin and bones. Return meat to broth and store in freezer till bean day.

Wash and sort 2 cups dry pinto beans. Add beans to pot with 8 cups water, 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and the ham with broth from above. Bring to boil, cover and simmer about 3 hours or until tender. Or put all the ingredients in a crockpot and cook all day.

Cracker Barrel Chicken And Dumplings Recipe

Chicken and Broth
3 quarts water
1 3-4 pound chicken cut up
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 small onion sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and quartered
1 bay leaf
4-6 whole parsley leaves
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Dumplings

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

1. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot. Add the chicken, 1 teaspoon of salt, onion, celery, garlic, bay leaf, and parsley to the pot. Reduce the heat to simmer and cook the chicken, uncovered, for 2 hours. The liquid will reduce by about one third.

2. When the chicken has cooked, remove it from the pot and set it aside. Strain the stock to remove all the vegetables and floating scum. You only want the stock and the chicken, so toss everything else out.

3. Pour 1 1/2 quarts (6 cups) of the stock back into the pot (keep the leftover stock, if any, for another recipe-it can be frozen). You may also want to use a smaller pot or a large saucepan for this. Add coarsely ground pepper, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and the lemon juice, then reheat the stock over medium heat while preparing the dumplings.

4. For dumplings, combine the flour, baking powder, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, and milk in a medium bowl. Stir well until smooth, then let the dough rest for 5-10 minutes. Roll the dough out onto a floured surface to about a 1/2 inch thickness.

5. Cut the dough into 1/2 inch squares and drop each square into the simmering stock. Use all of the dough. The dumplings will first swell and then slowly shrink as they partially dissolve to thicken the stock into a white gravy. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until thick. Stir often.

6. While the stock is thickening, the chicken will have become cool enough to handle. Tear all the meat from the bones and remove the skin. Cut the chicken meat into bite-size or a little bigger than bite-size pieces and drop them into the pot. Discard the skin and bones. Continue to simmer the chicken and dumplings for another 5-10 minutes, but don't stir too vigorously or the chicken will shred and fall apart. You want big chunks of chicken in the end.

7. When the gravy has reached the desired consistency, ladle four portions onto plates and serve hot. Serve with your choice of steamed vegetables, if desired.

Cracker Barrel Biscuits

2 cups Bisquick
2/3 cup real buttermilk

Work together Bisquick and buttermilk to smooth dough. Dip hand in just enough Bisquick to kneed dough in bowl until smooth and elastic. Shape dough into 16 thin patties, placing 1 atop another forming 8 biscuits in greased 9" round baking pan. Bake at 450~ 16 to 18 minutes or until golden. Wipe tops at once in butter. They split easily because of the way you formed them with the 2 pieces.

All of the products suggested here are available at your local Walmart grocery store.  It really doesn't take that much time to whip these up and throw them in the oven.  They will keep in the refridgerator for many days and can be warmed in the microwave for a quick breakfast on the run.

In a (2 quart) saucepan combine 2 cans (10 oz. ea.) Campbell's chicken broth with a 5 oz. can of Hormel chunk style ham (packed in water) torn into bits with forks. Then you have options:


FOR THE PINTO BEANS DISH:
Add 2 cans (15 oz. ea.) undrained pinto beans to the broth/ham mixture and allow to simmer gently 15 minutes.
(serves 6)

FOR GREEN BEANS:
Add 2 cans (14 oz. ea.) whole green beans to the soup/ham mixture and allow to simmer gently about 15 minutes uncovered.
(serves 6)

FOR THE GREENS SIDE DISH:
Add half of a 1 lb. bag frozen chopped spinach, unthawed, plus 2 c. finely scissor snipped fresh collard greens to the soup/ham mixture. Allow to simmer gently, uncovered, about 20-25 minutes or til greens are very tender. Serve drained and with vinegar on the side.
(serves 6-8)

Here you can take some shortcuts with the deli and frozen foods.

Cole Slaw - grab from the deli.

Steak Fries - frozen foods potatoes section.

Mashed potatoes - look for instant in the grocery section.

Breaded Fried Okra - frozen foods vegetable section.

Hashbrown Casserole

1 26-ounce bag frozen country style hash browns
2 cups shredded colby cheese
1/4 cup minced onion
1 cup milk
1/2 cup beef stock or canned broth
2 tablespoons butter, melted
dash garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Combine the frozen hash browns, cheese, and onion in a large bowl.
3. Combine the milk, beef stock, half the melted butter, the garlic powder, salt, and the black pepper in another bowl. Mix until well blended, then pour the mixture over the hash browns and mix well.
4. Heat the remaining butter in a large, ovenproof skillet over high heat.
5. When the skillet is hot, spoon in the hash brown mixture. Cook the hash browns, stirring occasionally, until hot and all of the cheese has melted(about 7 minutes).
6. Put the skillet into the oven and bake for 45-60 minutes or until the surface of the hash brown is brown.

Seasoned Rice - whatever your fancy.  There are a ton of them on the shelves.  It doesn't have to be an exact copy of Cracker Barrel to enjoy the experience.

I use a George Forman grill to cook all the meats and usually buy what is on sale the week I'm shopping. Keep a good supply of grill seasoning spices on hand.

Fried Chicken Tenderloins

I usually buy these from the deli and just add canned chicken gravy.

Grilled Chicken Tenderloins

1 pound Chicken Breast Tenders
1/2 cup Italian Dressing (drain spices and discard spices)
1 teaspoon Fresh Lime Juice
1 1/2 teaspoon Honey

Mix dressing, lime juice and honey together. Pour over chicken tenders, making sure all tenders are covered, marinate for 1 hour. Grill until done.