Who doesn’t love a bowl of piping-hot Cracker Barrel dumplings? These pillows of starchy goodness so often hit the spot when you are looking for something that makes you feel full and warm.
Interestingly, these are actually served without chicken at the restaurant when ordered as a side dish. If you like, you can add some cooked shredded chicken and have your own homemade chicken and dumplings.
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Cracker Barrel Dumplings
Southern dumplings aren’t difficult to make, and they can be put together rather quickly. This side dish doesn’t require a lot of different ingredients that you may need to go out and buy. But rather it has a lot of ingredients you already have in your pantry.
So if you are looking for an easy side dish from ingredients you already have on hand, this dumplings recipe may be the right one for you to try.
This homemade dumplings recipe is intended to be a side dish, so there aren’t a lot of extra items in it. This is a meatless recipe. If you have some leftover cooked chicken, it would be a great addition to the recipe.
Ingredients for Cracker Barrel Dumplings
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Whole milk
- Vegetable oil
- Chicken bouillon cubes or chicken soup base
- Butter
- Sugar
Ingredient Notes
After this recipe was developed, I switched to using soup base over bouillon cubes. It is my opinion that the soup base tastes better, it is a fact they often have less sodium.
So it is now my preference to use soup base in place of bouillon cubes.
How to Make Cracker Barrel Dumplings
- Mix flour, baking powder, salt, milk, and oil, until well blended.
- Transfer the dough to a floured surface.
- Knead the dough a few times.
- Divide the dough in half.
- Roll out one half of the dough.
- Cut the dough into pieces.
- In a large pot, combine the water and bouillon cubes.
- Boil until the bouillon cubes are dissolved.
- Add the dough pieces and cook until just about done.
- Use a strainer to transfer the cooked dumplings to a bowl.
- Repeat with the remaining dough.
- Melt butter in a saucepan.
- Add flour and salt. Stir until thickened.
- Combine milk and sugar.
- Add the milk to the butter/flour a little at a time, stirring constantly.
- Remove the sauce from the heat.
- Add the cooked dumplings to the sauce.
- Dissolve the crumbled bouillon cubes in cooking liquid.
- Add bouillon liquid to the sauce and dumplings. Gently stir it in.
- Return the dumplings to the heat and simmer for a few minutes.
Popular Cracker Barrel Copycat Recipes
Southern Side Dishes
- Mush Recipe
- Cauliflower with Cheese Sauce
- Stick Butter Rice
- Boiled Carrots Recipe
- Freezer Coleslaw
- How to Cook Red Skin Potatoes
- Recipe for Copper Pennies Carrots
- Easy BBQ Baked Beans
- Simple Cooked Cabbage
- Pea and Bacon Salad
Be sure to check out more of my restaurant sides and easy copycat recipes.
Cracker Barrel Dumplings
Ingredients
Dumplings
- 2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for kneading and rolling
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup whole milk
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 2 quarts water
- 3 chicken bouillon cubes or about 2 teaspoons of soup base
Sauce
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 1 cup buttermilk or whole milk
- 2 chicken bouillon cubes, crumbled or about 2 teaspoons chicken soup base
- ½ to ¾ cup dumpling cooking liquid (from after dumplings have been cooked)
Instructions
Dumplings
- Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, milk, and oil, blending well.
- Turn out the dough onto a floured surface.
- Knead the dough four or five times.
- Divide the dough in half.
- Roll out one half of the dough to 1/8-inch thickness.
- Cut the dough into 1 x 1½-inch pieces.
- In a large pot, combine the water and bouillon cubes/soup base.
- Boil until the bouillon cubes/soup base dissolve.
- Cook half of the dumplings until just about done. Dumplings are done when they float up towards the top of the pot.
- Use a strainer to remove them to a bowl and set aside.
- Finish the other half of the dumplings in the same way.
- Reserve the cooking liquid.
Sauce
- While the dumplings are cooking, you can start to prepare the sauce.
- Melt the butter in medium saucepan.
- Add salt and flour. Stir until thick.
- Mix the sugar with the milk.
- Add the milk to the flour mixture a little at a time, stirring constantly with a whisk until thick and smooth.
- Remove the sauce from the heat.
- Add the cooked dumplings to the sauce.
- Dissolve the crumbled bouillon cubes in ½ cup of the cooking liquid.
- Add bouillon mixture to the sauce and dumplings. Stir gently to combine.
- Return dumplings to low heat and simmer until blended.
- If the sauce seems too thick, gently stir in a little more cooking liquid.
Rachel Medina
Can I drop pieces of dough in the chicken broth instead of cutting them in stripes.
Stephanie
I think you will need to roll this dough out a bit, but you can drop in random pieces if you desire.
Kathleen Mossbarger
Thanks for Dumplings recipe from Cracker Barrel. My friend really likes these!
Linda Philley
a pizza cutter cuts better and quicker
Gale Ramsey
Looks easy enough! I remember that my Mother always added an egg to her mixture.
sandra mcpherson
I forgot to mention when you roll out the dough that you need to roll them out flat as possible. The recipe says 1/4 inch. When dropping into the chicken stock, put a little at a time and stir, do not put all of them at once , they will stick together and you have one big lump that is raw in the middle.
sandra mcpherson
As a former C.B. employee that made these countless times I can tell you the 3 ingredients to this recipe. Self rising flour, shortening, we used the brick and buttermilk. It is that easy. I can’t tell you the amounts because I made them in large quantities. Put ingredients in a mixer and mix tell the mixture until all is bound. Put the mixture on a floured table and cut with a sharp knife. We had a special instrument that cut the mixture in equal squares. Drop into boiling chicken stock. You will know when they are done. They usually flow to the top.
Jenny
What about the sauce is that the same?
Holly
Hi! I’ve made these before and we all love them – yummy!! Has anyone tried freezing them so you can just pull them out last minute for supper?
Thanks,
Holly