Bottom Line: The Bee-Sting Chicken Tenders from Cracker Barrel deliver some good, country-style fried chicken, but they could certainly use more heat.
When looking for spicy food, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is probably not going to be one of the places topping your list of stops. That’s the rather homey restaurant with the gift shop full of nostalgic items at the front, and it is certainly a good destination if you are looking for a chicken-fried steak or meatloaf or a big breakfast with eggs and potatoes and biscuits and more. But they are apparently trying to expand their menu, and they claim their new Bee-Sting chicken delivers a kick.
Cracker Barrel is currently giving you two options for how to try this spicy new item: as chicken tenders or as a chicken sandwich. The former includes two sides along with biscuits and/or cornbread and that sells for $12.99 in my area. The latter comes with one side and a drink, and that combo tallies up to $11.99. As it says in the title of the review, I tried the tenders.
Now, since Cracker Barrel specializes in country cooking, you would expect them to do some pretty darn good fried chicken, and you are right. The tenders are meaty and well-cooked, and they don’t go overboard with the breading. There is plenty of crunch from these chicken strips–even after the drive back to the office–and they are moist on the inside but not greasy at all.
The Bee-Sting sauce is strong on honey sweetness with maybe just a bit of hot sauce tang in the background. The tenders are not heavily drenched with sauce, but they give you extra if you want to put more on. When I tried the sauce by itself, it delivers just a bit of a sting–per the name–but by the time it gets on the tenders, the heat fades amidst the chicken and breading. But it still goes well with the tenders, like a sweet Asian sauce with just a bit of a kick.
I would put the tenders below Mild on my scale, and even those who don’t really care for spicy food should be able to handle them. I happened to have some habanero hot sauce at my desk (I’m working my way through a bottle of Tabanero Original at the moment), and adding that really kicked things up. The additional heat worked well with the sweetness of the sauce and amped things up to about Medium Heat. If you are eating these at the restaurant, ask for some Tabasco as that should kick things up nicely as well.
The Bee-Sting tenders come in at 820 calories by themselves, and they don’t give a further breakdown of the nutrition from what I can see. That’s already pretty high on the cals, though, and the sides can really pile onto that. I went with the fried okra (250 cals) and the turnip greens (100 cals) and saved half the tenders for the next day. I also got the cornbread muffins (210 cals each) and saved one of those for the next day. But what I ate the first day still totaled up to 970 calories, so I had to arrange for some time on the treadmill afterward. . .
The Bee-Sting Chicken Tenders may not bring much heat, but I pretty much expected that going in considering that Cracker Barrel is known more for comfort food than for spicing things up. I adjusted with my own hot sauce, and everything worked out quite well because their food is still quite tasty. The Bee-Sting tenders and sandwich will only be around through the summer months, so you will want to head there pretty soon if these sound intriguing. And be sure to browse around their country store while you are there because they have plenty of retro candy and other novelties that will tempt you as much as their home cooking.