13 Iconic Foods From Tennessee: What To Eat in TN!
If someone were to ask you, “What is Tennessee famous for?” would you say whiskey? Would you say Nashville? Well, you’d be right for both answers, of course, but the state is also known for famous Tennessee foods that are local favorites and Southern classics.
I’m lucky enough to travel through the southern United States rather often, and southern cuisine is something I love whenever I visit, but I have a special place in my heart for the iconic foods from Tennessee.
So, I’m excited to introduce you to the best Tennessee foods, their rich history, and the best places to try these famous foods when you’re visiting the Volunteer State.
Iconic Foods From Tennessee: Main Dishes
1. Memphis Barbecue
Memphis barbecue is one of the most iconic foods from Tennessee.
What food is Tennessee known for? You can put Memphis barbecue, particularly Memphis dry rub ribs, at the top of the list. What makes Memphis barbecue different from the barbecue of North Carolina, South Carolina, St. Louis, and Texas?
Well, in other parts of America’s Barbecue Belt, the flavor of the meat is enhanced by barbecue sauce being applied while the meat is being cooked. In Memphis, the meat of choice is pork, and it is simply rubbed with a special blend of salt and spices to give the pork its distinct flavor.
Every pit master’s rub is different, and there can be up to 40 different seasonings in the blend, but paprika and garlic are musts!
Although some BBQ joints offer a tangy barbecue sauce on the side when ribs or pulled pork are served, others don’t have any sauce at all. But the perfectly seasoned barbecue provides flavor enough to make you forget everything but the delicious meat in front of you.
So, when you visit Memphis, absolutely go check out the Mississippi River and head down to Beale Street to enjoy blues masters belting out awesome live music, but be sure to make time for some amazing barbecue too. The Rendezvous is just the ticket. This is the spot that first made Memphis barbecue famous, and it still packs in the crowds for its world-famous flavors.
You can also get marvelous Memphis Q in Nashville at the Peg Leg Porker, where Pit Master Carey Bringle makes wonderful Tennessee barbecue Memphis style.
2. Nashville Hot Chicken
One of the most famous foods from Tennessee, Nashville Hot Chicken
This, the most famous of all Nashville foods, was created when the scorned lover of Thornton Prince made up a batch of fried chicken so spicy it was meant not to dazzle Prince’s taste buds but to destroy them!
Instead, Prince loved the flavor of the sizzling hot chicken and thought others would too. He worked to find just the right mix of cayenne pepper and other proprietary seasonings to make his own fiery blend. When satisfied, he opened Prince’s Hot Chicken.
Almost 80 years later, Prince’s Hot Chicken is still one of the most iconic Nashville foods, and the key to its success is one of the most famous Tennessee recipes to remain a tightly kept secret. Of course, that hasn’t stopped others from making their own version of Nashville hot chicken.
When you visit Nashville and need some of the most famous fast food in Music City, I recommend you try both the true original, Prince’s, and Hattie B’s, another incredibly popular hot chicken spot.
Each has devoted followers in Nashville and beyond, but this way you can find out for yourself which version of this beloved food from Tennessee is your favorite.
3. Meat and Three
Monell's in Nashville takes Meat and Three to a whole different level.
Meat and Three’s were a type of eatery that popped up during the South’s transition from farm life to city living. These restaurants offered the type of scrumptious home-cooked meals that not everyone had the time to make anymore.
Nashville became home to many of these local restaurants that operated cafeteria style, offering the choice of a meat—anything from fried chicken to pot roast to meat loaf and beyond—and three side dishes.
Popular sides include southern specialties like collard greens, green beans, mac & cheese, and sautéed corn, to name just a few.
Fan favorites for a delicious meal of meat and three in Nashville include Arnold’s Country Kitchen, which opened back in 1982, is still family owned, and remains one of the most popular spots in the city.
My husband Mike and I were blown away by Monell’s, which is technically more of a meat and a million rather than just three, but the idea is still an amazing home-cooked meal eaten out.
At Monell’s, you gather at a communal table with whomever you happen to be sat and are served an almost never-ending procession of favorite dishes of the South: lots of meats and lots and lots of sides. It’s the kind of place where your mouth keeps watering even after you feel like your pants don’t fit you anymore. So, be ready to come hungry and leave happy—both groaning and grinning.
4. Fried Catfish
Fried catfish is a delicious food from Tennessee served many different ways.
Meat lovers never have to worry about going hungry in Tennessee, but there is delicious seafood to be had too—and catfish is at the top of the list. With Tennesseans being avid fisherfolk, and catfish farms being prevalent in the region, perhaps it’s no surprise so much catfish is enjoyed in the state.
Catfish is traditionally coated in cornmeal and fried. It can be slathered with tartar sauce or doused with hot sauce and eaten in an old school, white bread sandwich or in po’ boys, tacos, or salads.
The most common side served with fried catfish is hush puppies—little balls of fried cornmeal—but sweet potato fries, coleslaw, fried okra, or southern greens are popular too.
I’ve got two super spots for you to go to for some great catfish. In Memphis, Soul Fish Cafe is a place famous for fabulous fish. If you’re visiting Nashville, Uncle Bud’s Catfish, Chicken & Such is the real deal for a great catfish meal.
5. Country Ham
Country ham is a beloved dish in Tennessee.
Tennessee is in America’s Ham Belt, the part of the country that also includes Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia, where the climate is just right for salt curing hams for extended periods to bring out a concentrated salty flavor with a hint of funkiness and nuttiness. In the South, that’s a good thing!
As is the case with Virginia ham in Virginia, Tennessee ham is beloved in Tennessee.
A big time favorite in Tennessee is frying up thin cuts of country ham and then mixing the ham drippings from the pan with some strong black coffee to make red eye gravy. (The name comes from the little reddish circles of fat that form in the gravy after it’s whisked together.)
Country ham and red eye gravy may not be an official food of Tennessee, but it is incredibly popular, and ham in Tennessee is standard fare at breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
If you’re looking to try some in Nashville, Loveless Cafe has been pleasing customers with their country ham offerings since they opened back in 1951.
6. Biscuits and Gravy
Take my word for it, biscuits smothered in gravy are hiding under these fried eggs.
Fluffy biscuits paired up with piping hot sausage-flecked gravy is one of the classic comfort foods in just about any southern state, and Tennessee is no exception. And in the Volunteer State, you can still hear the gravy referred to as sawmill gravy.
That’s because this specialty was born in local lumber country where this meal was a staple among sawmill workers looking for a flavorful way to keep fueled for a physically demanding workday. Today, Tennesseans enjoy their biscuits with both sawmill gravy and red eye gravy.
If you’re looking for the perfect way to start your day in a flavorful way, there are two great spots in Nashville famous for their biscuit wizardry. In addition to its prowess with country ham and fried chicken, Loveless Cafe has also been earning fans for decades with its biscuits. A relative newcomer, Biscuit Love started out as a food truck back in 2012. It now has two highly popular brick-and-mortar locations in Nashville and two in nearby Franklin.
Iconic Foods From Tennessee: Side Dishes
7. Cornbread
Why have cornbread alone, when you can have a delicious biscuit too?
Another southern comfort food revered in Tennessee is cornbread. Unlike sweet cornbread—or northern cornbread as it’s sometimes called—the traditional southern cornbread of Tennessee includes little or no sugar and is always prepared in a cast-iron skillet.
So, it’s fitting that the National Cornbread Festival that is held in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, every spring is sponsored by the makers of Lodge Cast Iron cookware. The festival features a cook-off, lots of cornbread recipes, a cornbread eating contest, and live music. It’s been held for 27 years, so they must be doing something right.
8. Fried Pickles
Pro Tip: Order fried pickles at Hattie B's to enjoy while you wait for the rest of your order to arrive.
In the South, “Everything is better when fried” is not an official motto, but a lot of folks cook as though it is. And when it comes to fried pickles, I can’t blame them.
In Tennessee, dill pickles get cut into chips, then they are battered and fried and come out delicious! The crispy, crunchy coating is the perfect partner to the pickle’s sweet and sour tang, and the texture tussle is fun too.
I must say I was skeptical before my first encounter with fried pickles, but now I’m a true believer. You’re not going to have any trouble finding these just about anywhere you go in Tennessee.
9. Baked Beans
Baked beans are a perfect side for Tennessee barbecue.
Besides the ribs or pulled pork that’s in the spotlight of any Tennessee barbecue meal, there is almost always a helping of baked beans as a trusty side dish.
Most usually flavored with bacon, brown sugar, molasses, and some combination of onions, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, mustard, and maker’s choice seasonings, the deeply smoky, sweet, and sometimes sassy essence of baked beans hits all the right notes.
And Tennessee is happy to share this quintessentially southern food with people throughout the USA. In fact, America’s overwhelming favorite canned baked beans are Tennessee’s own Bush’s baked beans.
The first batches were made in the tiny town of Chestnut Hill in the Tennessee foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains back in 1908. Needless to say, they’re still going strong today and available at grocery stores across the nation.
Iconic Foods From Tennessee: Desserts
10. Banana Pudding
Tennessee banana pudding doesn't have to be fancy to be delicious.
When it comes to Tennessee sweet treats, it would be rare to have a meal at a restaurant in the state whose menu did not offer banana pudding as a dessert option.
Consisting of layers of vanilla custard, vanilla wafers, and slices of fresh bananas topped with whipped cream or meringue, this dessert is a delicious, refreshing way to end a meal.
And at home, every family has its own recipe passed down for generations. Those who think their family’s version is the absolute best can put that theory to the test at the National Banana Pudding Festival.
The festival includes a cook-off as part of the extensive activities on offer. The event is held every year on the first weekend in October in Centerville, Tennessee.
11. Stack Cake
The Stack Cake is a delicious dessert from Tennessee with roots in Appalachia.
As its name suggests, this is another of Tennessee’s delectable desserts that involves layering. In this case, dough is baked in the shape of large, thin circles. These crispy discs have a consistency more like a cookie than a cake, so to kick up the moisture content and flavor profile, a layer of apple filling is spread over each disc before the next one is added to the stack.
The finished product is not only a delightful way to satisfy a sweet tooth, it’s also a way to maintain a delicious link to Appalachian food history. Originally baked primarily for weddings, stack cakes are one of the Appalachian Mountain specialty foods that have not only survived the test of time but are enjoying a resurgence in popularity.
The passage of the Tennessee Food Freedom Act in 2022 increased opportunities for homemade food businesses to open and expand their operations, so not only can you find stack cakes at local bakeries in Tennessee, but newly minted home-kitchen entrepreneurs now offer their cakes at farmers markets and online.
Iconic Foods From Tennessee: Snacks
12. MoonPies
MoonPies have been making people in Tennessee happy for more than a century.
According to Tennessee food folklore, way back in 1917, a coal miner asked a representative of the Chattanooga Bakery, Inc., for a snack as big as the moon.
The baking company’s answer was a creation that sandwiched a marshmallow filling between two graham cracker cookies, dipped the combination in chocolate, and dubbed the delicious round creation a MoonPie.
During the Depression, when affording a meal of any sort was a giant challenge for millions of Americans, MoonPies became a popular working-man’s lunch, often consumed with another invention of the South, RC Cola. Together, the two would cost only a dime.
The dynamic duo was so popular that they were even immortalized in a hit song from the era, “RC Cola and a Moon Pie.” Today, MoonPies remain one of the most popular foods made in Tennessee and enjoyed throughout the United States.
13. Goo Goo Clusters
Goo Goo Clusters are a famous food from Tennessee that taste great anywhere.
In 1912, Nashville’s Standard Candy Company created a roughly round-shaped confection made of caramel, marshmallow nougat, freshly roasted peanuts, and milk chocolate. The new creation was given the name Goo Goo Cluster.
Standard Candy’s next challenge was to overcome the complexity of mass-producing the confection made of so many different components. It succeeded, and the Goo Goo Cluster became America’s first combination candy bar!
Like MoonPies, Goo Goo Clusters were also marketed as an affordable, nutritious lunch option during the Great Depression. These delicious treats have retained their popularity to the present day.
In Nashville, Mike and I had a fun time visiting the Goo Goo Chocolate Company downtown. It’s a museum, factory, and store all in one.
There, you can find the original flavor and all the newest varieties of the candy bar. You can even custom create your very own personalized version of Goo Goo Cluster!
Iconic Tennessee Foods: Drinks To Enjoy Them With
Now that you can expertly answer the question, “What food is Tennessee famous for?” here’s a little information on a couple of drinks that you are sure to encounter on any visit to the Volunteer State.
Sweet Tea
Three Tennessee favorites: a biscuit, sweet tea, and Biscuit Love
Once just a summertime staple of the South employed to lessen the sting of long, hot days, sweet tea is now a refreshing beverage enjoyed year round below the Mason-Dixon line, and that’s certainly true in Tennessee.
Sweet tea is said to have first been served in St. Louis during the World’s Fair of 1904, and it quickly spread throughout the South. With the onset of Prohibition in 1920, sweet tea became even more popular as a social-gathering substitute for newly outlawed alcohol.
Made with black tea and lots of sugar and simple syrup, sweet tea is delicious—but incredibly sweet. In fact, it can have twice as much sugar as regular Coca Cola. If that’s too much for you, feel free to ask for “half & half” at most restaurants, and you’ll get half sweetened and half unsweetened tea.
Tennessee Whiskey
Jack Daniel's has several varieties of its famous Tennessee whiskey.
Whiskey making in Tennessee can be traced back to the Scotch and Irish immigrants who brought their whiskey distillation skills to Tennessee when they settled there in the 1700s. It was their whiskey that was first given the name “bourbon,” since it was produced in Bourbon County, Tennessee.
Bourbon today must be made in the USA, predominantly from corn, aged a minimum of 2 years in oak barrels, and be free of additives. This liquor is known for its rich, smooth taste that contain notes of oak, vanilla, caramel, and spice.
Tennessee whiskey must be bourbon that is made in Tennessee using the Lincoln County Process, which further mellows the whiskey by filtering it through maple charcoal chips before it is transferred to barrels for aging. The result of this extra filtration is a taste even smoother than that of conventional bourbon.
The two major producers of Tennessee whiskey are Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel, household names among whiskey lovers. Both distillers still carry the name of their founders, Jack Daniel and George Dickel, two famous Tennesseans who both started distilling their whiskeys in their home state in the late 1800s.
In total, however, there are about 30 Tennessee whiskey distillers in the state, and the 25 who are members of the Tennessee Distillers Guild are part of the Tennessee Whiskey Trail that crisscrosses the state. All of them offer tours of their distilleries—something to think about when you make your plans to visit Tennessee.
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