Cracker Barrel isn’t just a place to get food — it’s an experience. The nostalgic, kitschy restaurant decor defines the atmosphere, from checkerboard tables to vintage candy for sale in the gift shop. As a road trip staple of the East Coast and haven to after-church seniors on Sunday afternoons, Cracker Barrel can get packed during a rush. If you don’t feel like relaxing in a rocking chair for 30 minutes to snag an open table, there’s a way to get a taste of the country cooking you love without having to sit down and eat inside.
Cracker Barrel offers $5 take home meals, which is an impressively affordable offering for a sit-down restaurant chain at a time when fast food restaurants are scrapping dollar menus. The only catch is that you have to first order an entree of equal or greater value. The $5 bundle works with to-go orders placed inside the restaurant or ones ordered online for pickup. While there are some Cracker Barrel dishes we recommend skipping, this “buy one full-price meal to get another one at a discount” deal is easy to make delicious and cost-effective when you pair the right menu items.
The $5 take home meals in question are actual full-sized meals, too, not bite-sized appetizers. Depending on the location, you’ll have a choice of fried chicken with mac and cheese, meatloaf with mac and cheese, or grilled chicken with mashed potatoes. And yes, we found a couple ways to get the most value out of this two-for-one deal to save time and money on meal prep throughout the week.
The country vegetable plate is the secret to customizing several meals
When it comes to putting together a Cracker Barrel entree and $5 take home meal combo, we recommend starting with one of the chain’s inexpensive yet filling entrees: the country vegetable plate, which costs $10.29. You can choose any four Cracker Barrel side dishes, and it includes biscuits or cornbread at no extra cost. You can do a lot with this one combined with the $5 grilled chicken and mashed potato meal. For this particular pairing, we’d recommend getting the country vegetable plate with rice, beans, mashed potatoes, and fried apples, although you can customize the entree however you like.
To meal prep with both dishes, cut up the grilled chicken and mix it with the sides of rice and pinto beans (season and sauce however you’d like at home), then double your mashed potatoes by combining the side from the meal deal with the side order of mashed potatoes from the entree. Next, cut the cornbread muffins in half and place the fried apples between each end for a sweet and tart treat. All of this food ends up being two to three meals at a grand total of $15.29.
Get a whole lot of goodness with the biscuits n’ gravy entree
Another entree to consider is the biscuits n’ gravy with bacon (or sausage). This is one of the most affordable full-price meals at Cracker Barrel, as $7.29 gets you three buttermilk biscuits, three strips of bacon, and sawmill gravy. By ordering this entree and pairing it with a $5 take home meal, you can turn these biscuits into sandwiches. For example, you can take the $5 fried chicken and mac and cheese add-on, and combine it with the biscuits n’ gravy order. This gives you three fried chicken and gravy biscuit sandwiches with a side of bacon-upgraded mac and cheese. You’ll end up with a super filling and yummy country brunch for around $12.29, and it’s enough to split between two people or save for meals later in the week.
Let’s take the math further and add the price of this two-for-one meal deal to the $15.29 from the country vegetable order. That’s four meals for under $30 to feed a family, split across lunch for the work week, or reheat for last-minute dinners. And, if you’re ordering more than one Cracker Barrel entree to feed two or more people, you can get multiple $5 take home meals for even more meal prepping.
