Cracker Barrel Thanksgiving Turkey Feast Review

I tried this pre-made holiday heat and serve meal from Cracker Barrel.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Some of the dishes were horrible disappointments, but others exceeded my expectations. Mostly, I was impressed by the volume of food, and the variety of options.

Cracker Barrel has several different take-home holiday meal options. I selected the Thanksgiving Heat N’ Serve Feast. The base price of this meal is $154.99, but after taxes, gratuity, optional upcharges, and one add-on, my total was $210. The website description states: “Includes two Turkey Breasts, Dressing, Gravy, Cranberry Relish, Sweet Potato Casserole, two sides, Rolls, Pumpkin Pie and Pecan Pie.” This meal is supposed to serve 8-10, which is a low estimate. The food is packed cold and requires two hours to prep and heat before serving. The kit has to be used within 72 hours of picking it up from the restaurant, which is still a pretty generous window. More about the meal options and side items later.

(Comparing several pre-cooked holiday meal options? Check out my review of the Publix Heat and Serve Complete Turkey Thanksgiving Dinner.)

Be prepared with extra refrigerator space.

I picked up my meal inside the store (rather than curbside), and it was a quick and easy process. I had pre-paid, and I opted to pick mine up a few days before Thanksgiving, so there was no rush or line. The staff even carried the box of food to my car for me. I appreciated this, because it’s heavy. They packed everything neatly in a reinforced cardboard box with a lid and handles, which made it easier. Even so, I used all my car’s trunk space transporting this home. Be prepared.

If you are not cooking and serving this right away, you will need an ungodly amount of refrigerator space. As in, a nearly empty refrigerator. Here are the entire contents of my box and bag. This is a ton of food.

You will also need aluminum foil, and I would recommend two roasting pans — one for the turkey breasts, and one for the dressing. More about that later.

What’s in the box?

My meal kit came with two 5-pound, individually wrapped, and fully cooked turkey breasts. They arrive chilled, and take slightly over an hour to reheat.

The side dishes are packed in aluminum pans with lids. Because I ordered the larger meal, I received two pans of each side dish automatically. Although you can heat and serve the sides directly in these pans, I opted to transfer mine to more attractive serving dishes before baking. This was a little tricky with the casseroles that have toppings on them, but I managed.

Everything was packed and labeled very neatly, and nothing was leaking. The Cracker Barrel staff checked the box with me before I left the store and inventoried the items in front of me and asked me if I had any questions. They went to a lot of effort to make this a smooth and painless process for the customer.

In fact, I even found two plastic bags with about a dozen single-serve butters inside, which was a nice touch. More about the butters later.

I also found a glossy booklet with detailed instructions for preparing each item in my kit. Fortunately, everything cooks at the same temperature (400 degrees), and I was able to fit everything in my oven that needed to be baked. Although Cracker Barrel estimated a 2 hour window for preparing the meal, the longest cook time is 70 minutes, so they factored prep time in this estimate.

Turkey

The turkey breasts take the longest — an hour and ten minutes — so I put them in the oven first. They need to be unwrapped, placed in your own pan (I used a large disposable roasting pan), and tightly covered with aluminum foil. That’s the only prep.

The only bummer with the turkey breasts is that one of them had detached the entire top of the thick skin when I unwrapped it. Fortunately, it still cooked up pretty nicely. It just looked a little ugly.

In fact, the turkey ended up being one of the best parts of this feast, which is appropriate. Because the breasts are pre-cooked, they don’t shrink much — you will get about 10 pounds of meat, even after cooking. This is a LOT of meat. I used my most enormous turkey platter to serve the two breasts.

The turkey sliced perfectly, and it was tender and juicy inside. Although the seasoning isn’t particularly zesty, the meat has a pleasing savory, almost smokey taste all the way through the center, and enough saltiness to satisfy most people (I salted mine, because I am a monster). The meat doesn’t have a processed texture, but tastes very natural.

(Looking for another turkey breast option? Here is my review of Costco’s Kirkland Oven Browned Turkey Breast.)

Sides

I’d hazard the cornbread stuffing required the most prep work, which wasn’t much at all. My kit came with two containers of broth and two pans of dry stuffing, which I mixed together in a bowl before pouring into my own roasting pan. It looked like WAY too much liquid for the stuffing, but I was determined to follow the directions, so I just rolled with it. The dry stuffing had thick slices of raw veggies, like celery, mixed in.

Fortunately, the cornbread dressing looks way better after cooking. I did bake mine a little longer than the directions recommended, because it seemed too soggy. It firmed up after I scooped it out into a bowl and let it steam out for a bit. The celery has a fresh taste (because it WAS fresh) — not soggy or too soft, but slightly crisp. This is pretty bland stuffing — only lightly seasoned —but it has a pleasant taste and soft, fluffy texture, with a satisfying cornmeal undertone. When I served mine, I topped it with gravy and a dollop of butter to give it some extra richness. The butter improved the taste. Butter improves everything.

This is about half the dressing in this 1.5 quart dish. There’s a ton of cornbread stuffing included in this kit, so even your most enthusiastic stuffing-eaters will have met their match.

Speaking of gravy, here’s the “turkey gravy.” The instructions said to heat it in a pot on the stove. I wasn’t a huge fan of the texture of this gravy — I prefer a more creamy, dark gravy — but it wasn’t unpleasant. It has a medium thickness. This is a very pale gravy, almost clear, and tastes like it was thickened with corn starch, perhaps. As you can see, the gravy has bits of veggies and shreds of turkey in it. That’s how it was packaged before I heated it.

The mashed potatoes are supposed to be microwaved, so I put mine in a 2-quart glass dish. There’s no prep for the potatoes — you just scoop them out of the aluminum pans and into your own dish. These are THICK mashed potatoes! I like thick. There aren’t any potato skins in here, but there are lots of tiny potato lumps/bits. I didn’t detect a sour cream tanginess — or a distinct butteriness — and I added a little salt to mine to improve the taste. Like most of the dishes in this meal kit, these mashed potatoes are on the “slightly bland” side, but still tasty. They don’t taste fake or processed.

I opted to “upgrade” one of my side items to the Broccoli Cheddar Casserole. This was one of my main disappointments in this meal kit. The rice was hard and chewy — almost crunchy! And the broccoli was hard and raw tasting. I cooked my casserole longer than the instructions recommended, and it was bubbling vigorously and crispy-browned on top, and piping hot all the way through. So, I held up my end of the bargain. I think someone at the Cracker Barrel store didn’t cook this properly before packing it up for me. At least, I hope this was a fluke. I hope people don’t normally eat it this way. Yikes.

Fortunately, the rice seemed to soften gradually and my leftovers the next day were more palatable.

The cheese sauce is creamy and generous, and the cracker bits are wonderfully crisp, crunchy, and flavorful. Out of all the items I received, however, this side dish tastes the most “processed,” due to the cheese sauce. I wouldn’t select this option a second time, especially since I paid an extra $10 to “upgrade.”

My second big disappointment was the Sweet Potato Casserole. Again, I hope this is a fluke. I hope this isn’t how Cracker Barrel usually serves this dish. Mine was extremely watery, even after baking uncovered for longer than recommended, and the sweet potatoes were not mashed, but rather chopped/shredded into pieces that weren’t soft enough. This casserole has a strong sweet taste, but an unpleasant aftertaste. A strange, sweet flavor that seems slightly “off.” Sorry, I don’t know how to describe it. It wasn’t nice at all.

There’s little to no spice taste. Not enough creaminess. The pecans are crispy and tasty, and there’s a small amount of brown sugar — but floating in watery sadness. I couldn’t bring myself to eat more than a couple bites of this casserole, and it was unappealing as leftovers, too. Unfortunately, you can’t “opt out” of this side item — it’s one of the included options in the meal. This is a deal-breaker for me.

Bread

I felt optimistic when I saw the rolls are packed raw, and you bake them yourself. I was sure this would yield fresh, joyful results. I was wrong. These are strange, sad little rolls. Mine did not rise or change after baking, except to get a bit browner. They are oddly flat, tiny, and unpleasantly square. Although they have a “sweet” taste, the texture is “coarse” and not particularly soft.

Did I mention these are tiny rolls? They are tiny. I have never seen such miniscule rolls. Fortunately, you get a lot of them, so everyone can have several. It just boggles my mind. I would rather have 10 good-sized, fluffy, yeasty rolls, than 2 dozen tiny, coarse ones.

As you can guess, these rolls taste worse the next day. They go stale in record time. If you do end up buying this meal, it may be worthwhile to purchase your own bake-and-serve rolls from your local grocery store instead of these. Just sayin’.

Condiments

So, the single-serve butter packets. I realized I could pop them open (a gentle squeeze from the sides) and collect the little butter lumps in a bowl. They actually looked kind of spiffy. Like elegant restaurant butter balls, but make it budget. I had enough to fill a small bowl, and they were easy to serve. 10/10, would do this again with free butters!

The cranberry sauce tasted exactly like mainstream canned cranberry sauce. Full stop. I like canned cranberry sauce, so I’m not mad. But, I still expected something… different. I guess. I was neither impressed nor particularly disappointed. Just meh.

Desserts

The pies exceeded my expectations. I got three: Pecan Pie, Pumpkin Pie, and I added an Apple Streusel Pie for an extra $12.99. The boxes said “Made from scratch.”

The pecan pie has small, crispy pecans on top of a creamy-smooth, flavorful jelly-like base. The filling has a lovely deep brown-sugary taste. I loved that this pie was not overly sweet. It has a surprising lightness for a pecan pie. It is, however, very soft. The crust is crisp, and salty. It’s probably the saltiest pie crust I’ve tasted, but I thought it was a great pairing with the sweet filling.

I noticed the Cracker Barrel ad showed this pie without a pie pan, so I tried gingerly removing the whole pie from the aluminum pan. It worked! The whole pie came out without breaking. It looks much nicer without the pan. If you decide to do this, make sure your pie is thoroughly chilled first, so that it isn’t too crumbly.

The pumpkin pie is, likewise, exceptionally smooth. The pumpkin filling is dense enough to be satisfying, but light enough to be soft and tender. This is a sweet pie, sweeter than average. I was impressed by how richly spiced the pie flavor is — it has strong notes of cinnamon. This is one of the more flavorful pumpkin pies I’ve eaten. Like the pecan pie, the crust is salty. I loved this. I’d also describe the crust as slightly flakey, yet somehow soft. It has a light, pleasant taste.

I added on an Apple Streusel pie for an extra $12.99. I’m glad I did, because this ended up being my favorite of the three pies. I loved that the apples still have their skins on them, and they are delightfully crisp and soft at the same time. The streusel crumbles have a wonderful buttery flavor and just the right amount of sweetness. I will say that this pie has almost no “apple pie spice,” which surprised me. Also, this pie didn’t serve as well as the other two — the crust tended to stick to the bottom of the pan, and it was tough to get the slices out intact. My taste buds do not care.

Dramatic Conclusion

Altogether, this meal was a good value. It provided enormous dinners for at least 10 people, and for me, days of leftovers. Notably, the turkey is high quality, and plentiful. Compared to other holiday meal kits on the market, this one offered more quantity for the price, and there was more variety of side dish choices and dessert choices. A true “feast.” The overall food quality was “good.” Minus the few disappointments, it provided a satisfying holiday meal. The items were packed with care, and easy-to-follow instructions were included.

Would I buy one of Cracker Barrel’s holiday meals again? I probably would, IF I could select a different choice than the Sweet Potato Casserole, and if there were better rolls provided. I wouldn’t upgrade a second time to the Broccoli and Cheddar Casserole.

This isn’t a meal I would rave about, but it was enjoyable. A solid choice.

The End.

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(Ha ha. Just kidding. Here’s some more (potentially redundant) information:)

Options for the Cracker Barrel Holiday Heat n’ Serve Turkey Meal Kit

One of my favorite aspects of Cracker Barrel’s meal offerings is how many options there are and how much food you get. I had a choice of 12 different side options, and 5 different add-on desserts. Some of the options come with an upcharge, unfortunately. There’s no bread selection — you get the rolls that come with the meal, but you can buy additional breads like biscuits or muffins. I also appreciated how wide the date range was for pick-up — I had from November 18 to 25, which allowed me several days before and a couple days after Thanksgiving.

The side options for this meal include:

• Broccoli Cheddar Casserole
• Loaded Hashbrown Casserole
• Loaded Mashed Potatoes
• Carrots
• Cornbread Dressing
• Fried Apples
• Green Beans
• Hashbrown Casserole
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Mashed Potatoes
• Mashed Potatoes with Turkey Gravy
• Sweet Potato Casserole

You probably noticed that some of these side options overlap with the standard options in the meal, such as the Sweet Potato Casserole and the Cornbread Dressing. I assume this is for folks want TWO servings of the same thing. I did not, so I picked things that were different from the ones included in the meal. There’s no need to double-up — you are already getting a LOT of food with just one dish of each.

There’s an upcharge of $10 for some of the sides, such as the Broccoli Cheese Casserole and the Loaded Hashbrown Casserole.

There are options to add additional side dishes and additional turkey breasts for substantially more money ($26-44, depending on what you pick). I can’t imagine needing more turkey than what was already included in my meal!

The Pumpkin Pie and Pecan Pie is standard with the meal, but you can add on additional desserts, such as:

• Cinnamon Roll Pie
• Chocolate Pecan Pie
• Apple Streusel Pie
• Another Pumpkin Pie
• Another Pecan Pie

The pie add-ons are reasonable ($13), so I added an Apple Streusel Pie to my order. I found a button later that offered other “catered” food add ons, such as a Peach Cobbler. So, there ARE more options, but they are more expensive (the cobbler is $33) and you have to navigate more to find them on the Cracker Barrel site. This is also where I found options to add additional bread, like biscuits, to my order. You can also add beverages, like iced tea or ground coffee.

Price for Cracker Barrel Holiday Heat n’ Serve Turkey Meal Kit

Overall, the ordering process was straightforward and convenient. The options were generally easy to understand and select. My total after tax and gratuity and my add-ons came out to $210. The base price of the meal was $154.99. Cracker Barrel also offers smaller meals that serve 4-6.

Ingredients in Cracker Barrel Holiday Heat n’ Serve Turkey Meal Kit

Do you wish you knew the ingredients in this meal? So do I.

In fact, I emailed Cracker Barrel customer service and requested the ingredients. I received a completely unrelated and unhelpful email response. I replied, saying my question was not answered. There was no response after that. I give the Cracker Barrel online customer service a grade of F.

I also asked the store staff at checkout for the ingredients, and was told they could not provide them. Boo.

Cooking Instructions for Cracker Barrel Holiday Heat n’ Serve Turkey Meal Kit

The instructions that came with this meal kit said the meal requires 2 hours to heat. In reality, the longest cook time is 70 minutes. The two hours includes extra time you might need to transfer the side items to your own dishes, and mixing the cornbread dressing, and setting everything out on your table.

Everything cooks at the same temperature (400 degrees), which is extremely convenient. The sides generally bake in 25-40 minutes. The rolls take 15 minutes. The mashed potatoes microwave in 9 minutes.

As mentioned above, everything that needed to be baked fit inside my standard-sized oven. I did take the turkey out before I put the rolls in, so that the meat could “rest” before serving.

Some things you may need to prepare this meal:

• Aluminum foil
• Roasting pan (I used two)
• 2-3 quart serving dishes for sides
• Refrigerator space — lots of it!
• A strong person to carry the box of food
• Willpower to not eat it all before Thanksgiving day

Bonus Information

The instruction booklet that came with the meal kit included several recipes for using your leftovers, which is a fun extra.

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More Reviews of Holiday Foods You Might Like (or Hate)

Check out these other reviews of Holiday foods I’ve recently written:

• Costco Pumpkin Cheesecake
• The Fresh Market Pumpkin Cheesecake
• Costco Pumpkin Spice Loaf Cake
• Aldi Pumpkin Spice Whipped Cheesecake
• Costco Pumpkin Pie
• Aldi Soft Gingerbread (Winternacht)

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Author’s note: I have no affiliation with Cracker Barrel, and I was not compensated in any way for this review. This insanely long review was powered by copious quantities of coffee and PIE.