7 Comfort Food Classics Cracker Barrel Should Immediately Add to Its Menu

Cracker Barrel is the ideal restaurant to visit if you want to have some great down-home cooking. The restaurant has a large menu loaded with comfort foods, ranging from chicken pot pies to fried steak dishes. You could visit the restaurant every week and always try something new. Then, when you’re on your way out, you can stop in their country store and buy some candy or decor for your home. The place has everything! Or does it?

While the Cracker Barrel menu is full of great options that will please any patron, we believe there is always room for improvement. In fact, we have seven items that we think they should add to their menu immediately. From familiar favorites like shepherd’s pie to outside-of-the-box ideas like cheese pizza, there’s a lot to consider. Cracker Barrel owners: If you’re reading this, please add these items!

Tater Tot Casserole Dish

A great dish that we think would fit in well within the Cracker Barrel menu is a tater tot casserole dish. It doesn’t have to be a whole casserole, but just a nice serving size along with your choice of side dishes. We believe this dish would fit in well with their catalog and that it would be a popular dish. This is the type of down-home cooking that puts this restaurant on the map year after year.

A Tasty Casserole Dish

There’s almost no way to make a bad tater tot casserole dish. The restaurant could make it with either cream of mushroom sauce, sharp cheddar cheese, mustard, Worcestershire, or all of the above. Just imagine this casserole with a side of French fries or corn. It would be the perfect dish.

French Onion Dishes

There are a couple of French onion dishes that we think would do quite well in the comfort food category. One of them is French onion pot roast. Cracker Barrel does have a pot roast option on its menu, but the French onion flavor would bring a whole new element. The other idea is a French onion mac and cheese dish. Cracker Barrel already has a traditional mac and cheese, but we think this alternate version would be a hit.

Elevating Mac and Cheese

We believe these elevated dishes would be real winners at Cracker Barrel. The French Onion mac and cheese could benefit from the addition of caramelized onions and Gruyere. Extra cheese would also hit the spot. As for the French onion pot roast dish, when it’s cooked with a cup of red wine and a couple of cups of shredded Gruyere, it really hits the spot, and the diners would love it.

Quesadillas

This menu option is a little outside of the box, but we believe that having quesadillas at Cracker Barrel would make a big difference for the restaurant. Imagine someone who has been to the restaurant many times before seeing these on the menu. They’d likely be inclined to purchase and try them out.

How Quesadillas Could Work

No, quesadillas aren’t exactly the type of food you’d expect at this restaurant, but we think it would work. They could incorporate steak, chicken, cheese, and the other ingredients that already make Cracker Barrel so popular. Plus, though adding this menu item would bring it closer to a Mexican food-style vibe, it’s a nice middle ground. We think the quesadillas would be a popular menu item.

Cheese Pizza

This is another potential menu item that may seem a little out of left field at first, but we think it’s mainstream enough to be a hit on the menu. A cheese pizza option could be effective on the kid’s menu or as an option for the adults. The restaurant shouldn’t go too far down the Italian route, but a simple cheese pizza could work.

Everyone Loves Pizza

Why would a cheese pizza slice work at Cracker Barrel? Easy, because everyone loves pizza. Patrons would come to the restaurant not expecting pizza, but they’d be glad to see it. We would recommend that the restaurant start with a simple cheese pizza and see how things go. They don’t want to go overboard and change the identity of the restaurant, but we think it would work.

Chicken & Sausage Gumbo

Adding a chicken and sausage gumbo would be another slight departure from the typical menu, but we think it would fit right in. The restaurant sells chicken dishes. They also have many that include sausage, including their Old Timer’s Breakfast and the Sunrise Sampler. So, the patrons wouldn’t be opposed to this dish. Plus, it’s just plain delicious!

A Tasty Gumbo

A chicken and sausage gumbo recipe would be tasty and very easy to implement. The odds are that Cracker Barrel already has most of the ingredients in the kitchen, from chicken and sausage to celery, garlic, and bell peppers, which the recipe calls for. This would be a tasty dish for cooler days, and it would be a new offering that most people would likely want to try.

Shepherd’s Pie

At this point, Cracker Barrel does have a chicken pot pie on their menu. It’s loaded with chicken, potatoes, peas, carrots, and onions, and it looks incredibly amazing. Since the kitchen already has most of the necessary ingredients, it’s now time to add a shepherd’s pie to the menu. It’s similar to the pot pie, but this one would be loaded with ground beef. When perfectly seasoned, this is a dish that most people won’t ever forget.

The Perfect Shepherd’s Pie

Of course, Cracker Barrel has the choice of how to make their shepherd’s pie. However, a great pie will begin with perfectly cooked ground beef. A splash of red wine in the recipe can bring the dish to the next level. The pie is then loaded with peas and corn and covered by a gorgeous layer of mashed potatoes. If this doesn’t scream “Cracker Barrel,” we don’t know what does.

Stuffed Peppers

Finally, we believe that stuffed peppers would be another great addition to the Cracker Barrel menu. Whether it’s part of a full meal or an appetizer, this dish would provide a lot of versatility to the menu and we think people would like it. They don’t have to be spicy peppers. Instead, they could be a savory offering to mix things up a bit.

Stuffed Peppers Provide Variety

Stuffed peppers are a bright and vivid menu item that would bring some excitement to the table. Plus, you have many options when it comes to filling them. You could use roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, fried rice, baked zucchini fries, or anything else the imagination can conjure. Most of these ingredients should already be in the Cracker Barrel kitchen, so this idea would be easy.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Barry Fowler/Shutterstock.com.