How To Recreate Wendy's Cheesy Baked Potatoes At Home Using Common Ingredients

There are those times when the cravings come — the itch that must be scratched. No amount of distraction or redirection will keep you from the siren's call of your favorite fast food flavors. That is, unless you've got an adequate dupe up your sleeve. Copycat recipes abound online for just this reason. If that's you, and you've had a hankering for Wendy's famously doubly cheesy baked potatoes but felt once you read their ingredient list all was lost — don't fret. You can make this creamy, melty, cheesy tater in your very own home, using ingredients you probably already have on hand (like cheese, milk, corn starch, and potatoes) plus a few secret touches that bring it all together in a way that will have you saying, "Wendy who?" 

But first — that ingredient list for their signature cheese sauce, because, honey — it's a doozy! While there are some easily recognizable ingredients, such as cheddar cheese, butter, and canola oil, there are also a few uncommon components, including: sodium citrate, whey protein concentrate, tomato concentrate, xanthan gum, Konjac, annatto (color), citric acid, onion juice concentrate, oleoresin paprika (paprika extract, sunflower oil), and soy lecithin. While they might seem intimidating, once you strip these ingredients down to what they do, it's pretty easy to make in your own kitchen.

The first thing you have to do is remember that fast food is designed to be just that — fast, cheap, and convenient. To keep costs down, recipes and ingredients are intended to be whipped up in bulk, frozen, reheated, and assembled quickly and easily, which also means they must be as shelf-stable as possible. 

In the case of shredded cheese or milk, proper refrigeration is all that's required, but once you've melted and emulsified that cheese, you need something to stabilize it; otherwise, it can quickly turn into a gloppy mess. That's why Wendy's cheese sauce employs a list of thickeners in the form of starches (modified corn starch and Konjac—a Japanese tuber akin to potato used for its starch), emulsifiers (whey protein concentrate), and stabilizers (xanthan gum, soy lecithin) intended to keep your cheese sauce creamy smooth. 

The other odd-sounding ingredients in the cheese sauce are easily resolved by using a bit of tomato paste, paprika, and onion powder in their place. The biggest hack of all — citric acid. You can find citric acid on Amazon, but you can also substitute it with lemon juice and baking soda. This dynamic duo works together to create a DIY citric acid that will take your cheese sauce from lumpsville to silky town. And that's it, bake some potatoes, whip up your cheese sauce using a combo of that cheese, milk, corn starch, and substitute ingredients, and grate some fresh cheddar for the top. Let the cravings begin!