The best Easy Wendy’s Chili copycat recipe to recreate the famous hearty and delicious chili with beef, beans, veggies and lots of amazing flavor.
A bowl of homemade Beef Chili is always a comforting meal, but sometimes I crave a big bowl of Wendy’s famous chili. With this copycat recipe, you get the best of the two, homemade chili plus the iconic drive-thru flavor!
Sabrina’s Easy Wendy’s Chili Copycat
Grabbing some Wendy’s Chili is a no brainer when the weather starts turning cold. Their chili is hearty, flavorful, and filled with just the right amount of heat to warm you up. With a perfect blend of beef, beans, and veggies, it is a beloved comfort food for many. Serve with a side of Sweet Cornbread and don’t forget a Wendy’s Chocolate Frosty or Vanilla Frosty for dessert!
Recipe Card
Ingredients
- 2 lbs ground beef , 85/15
- 29 ounces canned tomato sauce
- 29 ounces canned kidney beans , not drained
- 29 ounces canned pinto beans , not drained
- 28 ounces canned tomatoes , chopped (not drained)
- 1 yellow onion , diced
- 1 jalapeno , diced, de-seeded and de-veined
- 2 ribs celery , chopped
- 1 green bell pepper , chopped
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1/4 cup chili powder
- 1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon butter
Instructions
- In a heavy-bottomed stockpot, brown the ground beef and drain the fat.
- Add in the rest of the ingredients (except the butter) and bring to a boil.
- Lower to a simmer and cook uncovered (please keep at a simmer) for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
- Add in the butter and stir until fully melted and incorporated.
- Serve with toppings of choice.
Nutrition
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Table of Contents
About This Recipe
With this copycat recipe, you don’t have to head to the drive-thru when you are craving a delicious bowl of the famous chili. It has all the same flavors and textures as the original, down to their signature brothy consistency. Also, homemade chili a lot more budget friendly and you can enjoy delicious leftover chili all week long!
Chef’s Note
While grabbing a bowl of chili from the restaurant is convenient, there’s something special about recreating this classic dish in the comfort of your own kitchen. Plus making a homemade Wendy’s Chili recipe means you have full control the ingredients, adjust it to your taste and make it even better than the original version!
Can this be Made Ahead of Time?
Absolutely! This chili recipe actually benefits from being made ahead of time as it allows the flavors to develop and deepen further. Prepare the chili as instructed, let it cool, and refrigerate in an airtight container overnight. The next day, reheat it gently on the stovetop for a more flavorful meal.
How to Store
- Store: Allow the chili to cool completely, then transfer it to an airtight container. Store it in the fridge for up to 4-5 days.
- Reheat: the best way to reheat this chili is on the stove top over low heat, stirring occasionally until heated through, to deepen the flavors.
- Freeze: Divide the chili into freezer-safe bags, leaving some headspace for expansion. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight before reheating on the stove top.
Ideas to Serve
- Crackers: A standard side to chili is the saltine crackers, but with homemade chili, you can step up the sides! Instead of plain crackers, top a delicious bowl of chili with equally delicious Ranch Saltines.
- Cornbread: There’s also the classic chili side, cornbread! Serve a big bowl of chili with some Jalapeno Popper Cornbread Muffins!
- Buffet: Do you remember Wendy’s Super Bar, aka their amazing salad and chili bar they had in the 1990s? Indulge in the nostalgia of dining-in at a fast food place by setting up your own chili bar, complete with this homemade chili recipe. The secret to a perfect recreation is Baked Potatoes! Don’t forget the butter (or get real authentic with margarine), sour cream, and green onions for the ultimate trip down memory lane. For the salad bar, a simple iceberg salad mix will do along with lots of croutons, cheddar cheese, onions, tomatoes, and any other favorite salad bar toppings.
Alternative Cooking Techniques
Slow Cooker
- Brown the ground beef in a skillet and drain the fat.
- Transfer the cooked ground beef to a slow cooker.
- Add all the remaining ingredients (except the butter) to the slow cooker.
- Stir well to combine all the ingredients.
- Cover the slow cooker and cook on low heat for 6-8 hours or on high heat for 3-4 hours.
- Stir occasionally during the cooking process to ensure even distribution of flavors.
- About a half hour before serving, add the butter.
- Cook the remaining time, stir well and serve.
FAQ’s
Yes, it is made with onion and so is this copycat recipe. The great thing about making homemade chili, you can adjust it to your taste and skip the onions if you don’t like them, or use a little onion powder to taste instead.
Wendy’s Chili is a robust and hearty soup-like dish featuring a combination of beef burgers, beans, and vegetables cooked to perfection. This mouthwatering recipe has garnered a reputation for being hearty with bold spices in a thinner broth and lots of beefy flavor.
Yes, it can be considered a relatively healthy option compared to some other fast food choices. But this homemade version is even healthier. It contains a good amount of protein, fiber from the beans and vegetables, and is relatively low in saturated fat.
Variations
- Meat: Instead of ground beef, use ground turkey or chicken. Wendy’s chili was created to use up leftovers, so why not make this with leftover burger patties or even Homemade Beef Meatballs.
- Vegetarian: To make this chili vegatarian use a plant-based meat alternative instead of the ground beef. You could also use more veggies to replace the meat, just cook them in oil first to make up for the beef fat. To make it vegan, also use a plant-based butter alternative.
- Veggies: Add extra vegetables like carrots, zucchini, or corn to enhance the nutritional value and make it even heartier.
- Spicy: Increase the heat by adding crushed red pepper, more jalapenos, hot pepper sauce, or even chipotle peppers if you love your chili with a spicy kick.
More Beef Chili Recipes
The following pictures were featured in previous versions of this post:
Something I learned from a previous Wendy’s worker is that the beef they use is leftover hamburger patties. Just something to keep in mind when trying to replicate the flavor.
I look forward to making your recipe soon. ?
We love this chili recipe. I’ve made it several times.
I found this recipe while checking my email. I just finished making it. To tell you it’s the balm would be a fib. It is the BALM and so much more. Family will be begging for this Chili again and again.
thank you Martha!
This chili is nothing like Wendy’s chili. It is spicy.
Excellent! So easy and delicious. Tastes just like Wendy’s. Thank you.
I love this recipe ! I do modify a bit where I don’t use as much chili powder and I add fresh chopped tomatoes and use 1lb of hamburger and 1 lb of turkey . I also like to sauté the onion and pepper in a little olive oil or butter and then add the hamburger.
Thanks for sharing!
I made this tonight and it is DELICIOUS! It makes enough to feed a small army and I can’t wait to bring some of the leftovers to my coworkers tomorrow. Notes, I did add some beef bouillon to taste.
I don’t know why you would try to compare this to Wendy’s chili…! ( just to try to get people to look at your posts…?) it’s way off(for one Wendy’s doesn’t have jalapeños…) and all the ratios are off! It looks like it might taste good though, nice try!
If you new anything about cooking you would know different ingredients put together can recreate other flavors .. good try sounding smart
I find it to be very similar in taste.
The old Wendy’ chili is what everyone wants. It was very mild with lots of green bell pepper and nothing hotter. It had one or maybe two tablespoons of chili powder, possibly a teaspoon of cumin with 2 lb hamburger, 1 pinto and 2 cans kidney beans, 2 cans diced tomatoes and a diced sweet onion.
very simple. Yours is too hot and definitely not a copycat Wendy’s from the good old days. I can’t eat the stuff Wendy’s makes now. IT IS HORRIBLE.
Just made this! It is very tasty. We like spicy and I feel it has nice flavor it is easy to adjust the i seasoning but with the added onion we always add to our bowls this is perfect
The old Wendy’ chili is what everyone wants. It was very mild with lots of green bell pepper and nothing hotter. It had one or maybe two tablespoons of chili powder, possibly a teaspoon of cumin with 2 lb hamburger, 1 pinto and 2 cans kidney beans.
very simple. Yours is too hot and definitely not a copycat Wendy’s.
Superb! Tastes just like Wendy. It’s basic bish chili but very hearty and satisfying. I will say how easy this recipe was to make and it didn’t have tons of ingredients. The simplicity of it sold me! A+++
Thank you Ty!
The family loves this recipe!
I love Wendy’s Chili & since it tastes like my own (the Crock Pot chili recipe I’ve used forever), I decided to try your Wendy’s Chili recipe. (Please note I have grown & cooked with Jalapeño peppers all of my life & worn gloves to seed & devein the peppers).
The jalapeño in your recipe – absolutely killed the taste of the chili – because of the “burn” from the capsaicin in the Jalapeño. It was so strange in the fact that the burn from the Jalapeño pepper didn’t happen in the mouth (or on the tongue), it burned only in the throat.
My husband loves chili & begged me to let you know that the Jalapeño in the recipe ruined the chili. I have to agree with him, and feel you should “omit the jalapeño pepper from your recipe.”
To be fair, I made your recipe again – BUT OMITTED the jalapeño pepper. I found that omitting the jalapeño pepper – your recipe was an “exact match – to Wendy’s Chili.”
What is the oz per serving size? You give the serving size, but not the oz.
Thanks
I made this, exactly as posted. It is delicious, but we needed a bit more spice. We added a teaspoon of Tony’s creole. I will half the celery next time, my family has basically demanded I do so. It adds a lovely crunch, but 2 stalks of celery is a TON. Thanks for the recipe!
For the slow cooker, do you leave the top off? I can’t imagine that, but I’m not sure how enough water evaporates to make it the right consistency?
Thank you!
OMG ? I made this today and its a exact dupe. So yummy. Definite keeper. Thank you for sharing
The family loves Wendy’s chili so I thought I would give this a try, subbing in ground turkey for the beef. Great recipe! We all just about burned our mouths sampling it after the 2hr simmer. Even got 2 “I kinda like this better than Wendy’s” comments. Thank you for the recipe!
This is my family’s favorite Chili recipe! We use 1 lbs ground venison, and 1 lbs ground pork or sausage, because that’s what we usually have on hand. It’s delicious. I also usually swap out the kidney beans for chili beans (just personal preference).
I am absolutely in love with this Wendy’s chili and It will always be a keeper in my family. thank you for sharing one of the best recipes hands-down?
Best chili recipe I’ve ever had. I use my crockpot definitely a keeper!
Thank you very much Machelle!
Love this KopyKat….
? Though…
“2 Stalks of celery”
U mean ribs of?
2 stalks is HUGE
Hello Kelly, I did mean two stalks of celery for this recipe. However, you can use two ribs of celery if you would like.
I had no idea it even had celery in it nevermind it’s 2 whole stalks.
I’m eating Wendy’s chili right now actually and I’m trying to find the celery. I plan on using your recipe in the next week or 2. Thanks for posting it!
Loved Wendy’s chili before going vegan, and this recipe is amazing and super easy to make vegan if you sub Impossible meat for ground beef!! Tastes just how I remember.
Interesting catch – I assumed it meant ribs. I wouldn’t go for two stalks, that seems excessive!
This is my “go to” chili recipe. In my opinion, it’s better than Wendy’s chili.
Wow! Thanks, Jocelyn!
I thought it was too simple to be any good and I was wrong. Perfect Wendy’s chili copycat, and excellent pot of chili all around. The only thing I would change is that with 85/15 beef, I actually didn’t have any liquid to drain, so I was able to skip that step. Very impressed. So good.
Hi Jason! Thank you so much for stopping in and sharing with us and I’m glad you enjoyed the chili!!!
I haven’t made this but will definitely try to. I’m pregnant and have been craving nothing but Wendy’s chili and that can get pricey for such a small portion! I worked at Wendy’s in my teenage years and while I never made the chili I did watch it a few times. They actually take the beef Patty’s that weren’t used at the end of the night and cop them up into the chili. This makes for bigger chunks of beef! I think I’ll do that because that one of the best parts of Wendy’s chili.
Wendy’s always drains as well as rinses the beans that go into their chili. They take steps to take the fat out of their chili, they boil the meat and then drain and chop it. I do not understand the butter.
I suppose that bit of butter is one of the steps that makes this recipe taste (in my opinion) better than Wendys.
Yes but they boil leftover cooked meat from previous days hence the cooking part instead of boiling. And they used pre made bags of sauce and canned sauce which contains addition fats which is why the butter
Very good chili!!!
!00% tastes like Wendy’s Chili! SO freakin good! This is the best copycat recipe I have ever tried. Thank you!
I’ve been making a Wendy’s copycat chili recipe for at least 10 years and the recipes floating around all that time used tomato JUICE in the recipe. Why have all these copycat recipes changed over the years?
I used Rotel instead of regular diced tomatoes. I love this recipe
So glad you enjoyed it!
Hi, could you tell me what brand of chili powder you use. I clicked on link and it goes to Amazon.com but says the app is no longer supported. So it doesn’t show the brand . Thanks
I use McCormick. Sorry for that! Here’s the link: McCormick Chili Powder
I make this chili a lot. It taste good anytime. It really does taste like Wendy’s. Thank you for the recipes. It helps a lot to have a restaurant taste without having to go to the restaurant.
This is such a delicious chili. It hits all the right notes for me and my family. I grow chilis in my garden and of course have to chop and add a few for a touch more heat. Also didn’t have enough tomato sauce on hand so I added one can of tomato sauce and 2 cans of La Costena chipotle salsa (chipotle pepper sauce) for the additional tomato sauce needed and it turned out great. Thanks for a great chili recipe….this is a regular in my home.
Sounds like a great substitution, Cynthia. Thanks for the 5 stars.
Excellent family meal with a cold Winters in Chicago we have made this three times this winter today will be my fourth.
That’s awesome, John. Thanks for coming back to let me know how much of a hit it is.
I’ve been eating Wendy’s chili forever!!! They recently changed the recipe and now I don’t like it anymore, I don’t want the pinto beans that they have added recently…?
Yes, for years, along with the kidney beans, it used to be just pink beans, but now the ingredients on the website, along with kidney beans, list “pink and/or pinto beans”. I suspect that pink beans have become more difficult to source, and/or have become more expensive. I like the taste and texture of the pink beans better than the pinto beans.
Copycat recipes for Wendy’s chili have been on the internet for a very long time and never included beans, much less multiple kinds of beans! And the old recipes always included tomato JUICE in the ingredients. The recipe has changed so much that I now consider these recipes fraud.
We loved this, even my mother in law who does not like spicy food. This has a lot of spice but mild hotness. At first I only used less than 1/4 c. Chili powder thinking it was too much but added in the rest to taste right. Only thing I changed was I used canned roasted medium hot green chili peppers. Also made it with 1 3/4 lb beef which was all I had. Much better than my chili which only had 1 lb beef. Thank you very much? Making this again in time for getting snowed in this weekend.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Chili is always what I crave when getting snowed in. Pure comfort food!
Can the chili be cooked in a crockpot and turn out the same?
Yes!
Do you not sauté the peppers and onions first?
I didn’t but you could if you wanted to. Enjoy!
It doesn’t matter what kind of beans go in the recipe (had black beans, and pinto beans. It’s very good, thank you for sharing your recipe!
My guest loved this chili recipe made as is and felt it tasted ‘just like Wendy’s chili’. I will make this again as it’s super easy. Thanks for the recipe. If I could post a picture, I certainly would as it was lovely.
It doesn’t matter what kind of beans go in the recipe (had black beans, and pinto beans. It’s very good, thank you for sharing your recipe!
Yes, it’s very versatile.
Making this, literally as it’s simmering as i write this.
But my house smells like i bought a gallon of Wendy’s Chili, it’s that close. I did a few small mods, but essentially made the recipe as written. Smells so good, i’ve tasted it and it will definitely be a regular in my house. The main thing I changed was in another version who used V8 instead of Tomato sauce and it adds a little of the characteristics of V8 which isn’t a bad thing.
Overall, it’s really good and maybe better than Wendy’s in some ways. Probably healthier since i know exactly what’s in it.
Love the recipe on Wendy’s Chili. I’ll fill the freezer for the remaining winter!
Glad to know it’s such a hit in your house! Thanks for the 5 stars.
How can this be adapted for the crockpot?
Yes, I included slow cooker instructions in the post above. Enjoy!
Wendy’s uses kidney and pinto beans. If the chili you’ve tried has anything different, they are not making it by the original recipe. I used to have the original recipe, but sadly, I’ve misplaced it. I got the recipe from my cousin, who managed a a Wendy’s, in the 70’s and 80’s.
Betty Missouri
Ashley I remembered seeing this recipe from my cousin, who managed a Wendy’s, in the 70’s and 80’s. I know I took a snap shot of it but I can’t find it still looking.
It was the best Chilli
I am going to try this recipe. If I find the recipe I will try to find this spot again and send it to you.
I worked at Wendy’s in the early/mid 90s. I love their chili always have. Flavor is wonderful. This recipe is pretty much on point!
Thanks, Heather!
I just made this the 2nd time in 2 weeks
I have had 4 people I shared it with gave me 5 stars. It’s very delicious almost the same as the restaurant Wendy’s.
I saved the recipe for future making
Wow, that’s awesome! Thanks for coming back to let me know.
Hi Sabrina, my question is…Can this recipe be made without meat in beginning? I have one son who is vegetarian and one not. I was wondering if I can add ground beef later. If so, how would or should I season the meat during the browning process. My idea was to split the chili, half with meat half without. Please help! These twins are making it very difficult to feed everyone at dinner time ?
I’m thinking that would work. You may need to thicken the meatless portion though so once split, possibly add more beans. Good luck!
What can I substitute instead of the jalapeno de-seeded and de-veined? Can I use a canned product of some kind?
You can substitute with canned Serrano chili peppers.
Stove top simmer or can I use a crockpot on low?
If you want to use the slow cooker, I’d suggest 6 hours on low or 3 on high. Enjoy!
Very good thank u
Very good chili but I went light on the bell pepper. Very easy to put together. Made some jalapeño cornbread to go with it. I like mine with sour cream and shredded cheddar. Delicious
I have tried several of these Wendy recipes. They are all similar in ingredients–this one may need an edit as there seems to be a duplication of the 29oz of tomato sauce. Also, one of the commenters is right about the real product has a mix or 14 1/2 can of kidney beans and 14 1/2 oz can of pinto beans–both drained. Otherwise, this appears close. Who can really discern a difference in kidney and pinto in chili?
Ole!
Do I need tomato sauce and canned tomatoes? I never made chili before. THanks!
Yes, you’ll need them for this recipe.
I can… dont like kidney beans
Very close to Wendy’s chili, But they use red beans and kidney beans, not pinto beans.
I just ate Wendy’s chili and there was pintos in the there.
Omg this is seriously just like Wendy’s chili! Absolutely easy to make and you can’t tell the difference because it seriously tastes just like it! Excellent recipe!
Absolutely…