Every Cracker Barrel Holiday Pie, Ranked Worst To Best

Cracker Barrel has been whipping up comfort food favorites since it first burst onto the food scene in 1969. While the restaurant chain has come a long way since its menus were handwritten, some things haven't changed, like its commitment to quality, value, and bringing families together around a dining room table. 

While many of us aspire to dine together as a family all year long, the reality is that this isn't always a possibility, which is what makes the holidays such a special time of year. This is where we break out the fine china, pull out time-honored recipes, and plan meals weeks in advance. Though there are plenty of chef-approved ways to elevate your holiday meals, some of us prefer to focus our time in the kitchen on the main entrees, side dishes, and appetizers rather than splitting our attention (and valuable oven space) between these and the dessert course. 

That's where Cracker Barrel comes in to rescue the (holi)day. If you have decided that you aren't up to baking the pies this Thanksgiving or Christmas, but you still want to serve your family and loved ones something that tastes almost homemade, you might want to stop by the restaurant chain to order one of its five limited-time-only holiday pies. These pies range from classics, like pumpkin and pecan, to unique spins, like the Cinnamon Roll Pie. We sampled each Cracker Barrel holiday pie and ranked them so you know which one to order for your holiday festivities this year.

Landing at the bottom of this list is the Cinnamon Roll Pie. Let me start by saying that it is hard to select a "last place" contender here, as all of these pies were worthy of inclusion in your holiday meal (with caveats), but this one fared the least well after bringing it home. 

The concept of this pie is brilliant, even if the execution wasn't exactly stellar. It combines pie crust with freshly baked cinnamon rolls and a sweet cream cheese icing. Unfortunately, unless you are consuming this pie immediately after it comes out of the oven, it dries out. One would assume that with the amount of fat contained in a classic cinnamon roll recipe this wouldn't be the case, but by the time I got the pie home, it was almost hard to swallow, which is why I popped the slice into the microwave for a spell. 

Heating the pie unlocked its flavor and softened its texture, rendering it fork-tender. The cinnamon was present, yet not overwhelming; the pastry itself tasted buttery and yeasty, but not overly sweet, and the pie crust was flaky. Perhaps the only issue once heated was that the icing firmed up a bit, but this didn't make it less flavorful. 

That said, there are no instructions that come with this pie that suggest it should be heated before serving, and without this extra step, it is almost inedible. For this reason, it landed dead last on this ranking.

Next to last on this ranking is the Chocolate Pecan Pie. This is the pie I was most looking forward to, as I love pecan pie and I am a chocoholic. While the pie itself was well-prepared, it had one near-fatal flaw — too many chocolate chips. I recognize that this may sound impossible, but in this case, the semi-sweet chocolate chips were more distracting than they were a delightful upgrade for a classic pecan pie. 

While the pie crust itself was perfectly buttery and flaky, the filling was rendered too dense by the chocolate chips. These didn't melt during the baking process, but rather remained chunky, making the filling more sturdy and less gooey than I typically enjoy. What's more, the flavor of the chocolate overpowered the pecan pieces, making them almost an afterthought in the pie. They also made the pie almost excessively sweet for my palate, though I imagine there are others for whom the sweetness level would be perfectly fine.

The one way this pie may be more desirable is heated in the microwave. I tested it out, and this did help the chocolate chips melt a tiny bit, but it also impacted the textural integrity of the custard filling somewhat, causing it to be slightly runny. That didn't deter me, but it may be off-putting for pecan pie purists. For these reasons, this pie couldn't beat out the remaining contenders on this list.

In third place on this ranking of Cracker Barrel holiday pies is the Pumpkin Pie. Few things are as integral to a Thanksgiving dinner as a homemade pumpkin pie, and as a former professional chef and pumpkin lover, I have made my fair share of these. In fact, I'd call myself something of a snob when it comes to pumpkin pie. The key to a perfect one is adequate spices that don't taste like a candle in your mouth, a sweetness level that tempers the squash without totally masking its natural flavor, a filling that is creamy, and a crust that is perfectly flaky and buttery. This pie fulfilled all but one of these requirements. 

When it came to the filling of this pie, the spice level was on point, the texture perfection, and the pumpkin itself present, yet not overtly vegetable-forward. What was lacking, to my dismay, was the crust. While it wasn't altogether bad, it was ... odd (for lack of a better word). The crust used for this pie tasted — and had a texture more akin to – Cracker Barrel's beloved buttermilk biscuits, rather than a classic, flaky crust. It was slightly dense and almost seemed underbaked. It also crumbled when I sliced the pie, with the edge falling right off the moment I scooped it out of the pie tin. While this didn't deter me from eating the pie, it did result in it landing in the middle of this ranking. 

Landing in the #2 slot on this ranking is the Pecan Pie. A homemade pecan pie is a thing of beauty, and something that isn't easy to execute, even for professional bakers. That said, store-bought ones often lack flavor, texture, and quality, which is why I was so impressed with this pie. The pie crust was suitably flaky and buttery, as it should be, and the filling-to-crust ratio was perfectly well-balanced. The filling had high-quality pecan halves that tasted fresh and a custard base that was sweet, but not cloying. The spice level was just right, with enough cinnamon to appreciate its presence, but not so much that it distracted from the remaining ingredients. 

Perhaps my only minor complaint was that there could have been more pecans in the pie. As it was, the majority of the pecans rose to the top outer edge of the pie, leaving the very center of the slices a little scant on the pecans, even if the gooey filling was delicious and had an ideal texture. This led to my eating around the center of the slice and mostly consuming the outside half of the slice. But don't let this critique mislead you; this is a delicious pie that tastes almost as good as my homemade version and that I would feel really good about bringing to any holiday gathering.

The winner of the best-in-pie show is the Apple Streusel Pie. This masterpiece combines Cracker Barrel's iconic apples with a flaky pie crust and adorns them with a classic streusel topping. The result is nothing short of perfection. Among the pies I sampled, this is the one I could easily consume by myself, in one sitting (much to the dismay of my primary care physician). 

What this pie does better than all the others is the execution of each component on its own and the balance of all of these as a whole. The pie crust was exactly what you imagine your grandma used to make. The apples had skins on and were just firm enough that they didn't completely dissolve, but tender enough to not be a distraction. The warm spices accentuated the natural tartness of the apples. Lastly, the streusel topping was perfectly sweet and slightly salty, helping to complement the just-sweet-enough filling, while delivering some textural interest to the whole dessert. 

For as amazing as this pie was as-is, it was even more incredible when I heated it up. Just 30 seconds in the microwave and this was next-tier great. All this needed to put it into "the best thing I ever ate" territory was a scoop of high-quality vanilla ice cream. Otherwise, run, don't walk, to your nearest Cracker Barrel and order one of these pies for your next holiday meal. 

Cracker Barrel's holiday pies are available for a limited time only. All but the pumpkin pie can be found through December 24, 2026, while the pumpkin pie will only be in stores through November 29. Each pie serves 10 (though we'd argue some serve less because we are gluttons), and can be purchased online with 2-hour advance notice or in stores. Some pies may be available by the slice at certain locations, but my local outlet only offers whole pies. A whole pie costs $14.49 plus tax, though prices may vary by location. 

I ordered my pies for pickup on a Saturday afternoon and sampled them the following morning, as most people serving a pie on a holiday will need to pick them up in advance to serve them on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I did this deliberately, as I wanted to see how the pies would fare the next day, rather than fresh out of the oven.

I started by cutting a slice of each pie and sampling it at room temperature. For certain pies, where it made sense, I microwaved the slice to sample it warm, as indicated in my ranking. My observations were based on overall quality, taste, texture, aroma, and my experience as a former professional chef and baker.