10 Delicious Tricks To Make Wendy's Chili Even Better

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Wendy's chili is a comforting side that most of us have been getting for years, but it's far more customizable than you probably knew. We challenge you to stop looking at it as a lone side and start looking at it as one of the most versatile items the chain has to offer. And you don't even have to leave the restaurant to make it better, since there are many ways to upgrade it with existing menu items or use it to upgrade other items.

According to Wendy's, the chain sells 83 million servings of its delicious chili every year. In fact, it's so popular that some locations offer a family size for those who prefer it to homemade. The menu already uses chili as a topping in its taco salad, chili cheese fries, and chili cheese baked potato. And there are certainly some standard toppings that you can order to add to your chili. However, there's so much more you can do with it than you've probably considered. So, order a cup of chili next time you drop in, and use these 10 ideas to help jump-start your creativity when it comes to new ways to enjoy it even more.

If you're the type of person who likes Frito chili pies, you're sadly not going to get that at Wendy's, but you can upgrade the texture to make the mouthfeel better. The trick is to browse the menu for items that give you texture or crunch. These upgrades help especially if your location makes a more soupy version of the dish.

We have several ideas for you. The first is a menu item that already comes with the chili: Saltine crackers. Rather than use the crackers as makeshift spoons, you'll want to crumble them into the bowl. Crumbling a little with each bite will give you a satisfying crunch, while letting it sit a while to soften will make the chili a little less watery. Some of the other items that can add crunch and flavor come from the salad menu: Croutons, crispy fried onions, and chili lime taco strips. The flavored tortilla chip strips come with the taco salad and fit great with the flavor profile. If you're in Canada, you can get nachos to crumble in it.

Meanwhile, croutons come with the Parmesan Caesar salad, and the crispy fried onions come with the Cobb salad. If you order one of these salads, you can add some of the toppings to your salad and some to your chili. Another option is to crush fries into it. These will thicken it if it's soupy and add an interesting flavor layer.

With ground beef, beans, and a spicy tomato-based sauce, chili makes a great flavor and protein addition to salads. Granted, we think that some salads on the menu make a better match for it than others.

The best match is Wendy's taco salad, which already comes with chili. However, nothing's stopping you from buying another bowl to add to the salad. Another option is to make a reverse taco salad by transferring some of the ingredients from your taco salad to your chili bowl. Go ahead and stir in some fresh tomatoes and fire-roasted corn. Then, add a few of the chili lime tortilla strips on top, and if you're feeling adventurous, add a dollop of the creamy salsa dressing.

Wendy's customers on social media have talked about adding the chili to side salads as well. You can make a cheapie taco salad by combining chili with the humble ingredients in a garden side salad if it's on the menu. Although there's no reason you couldn't add chili to some of the other salads as well. We're specifically thinking of how it would pair with the Parmesan Caesar salad and the Cobb salad to add more flavor and protein. Since they're already both on the savory side, it could make for an interesting addition. And while we hesitate to add it to the sweeter apple pecan salad, we'll let you make up your own mind about that one.

If you're a fan of loaded baked potatoes, you're likely also going to love Wendy's loaded chili. For this one, you can take your inspiration from all the toppings available to add to Wendy's baked potatoes. However, you don't necessarily have to stop there. You can keep going, depending on what the employees behind the counter are willing to give you and what else you order.

First of all, you should take advantage of all the add-ons that you can already get with Wendy's chili for the asking. For one, it already comes with a packet of saltine crackers. Freebie add-ons typically include hot sauce and sweet onions. Sour cream may or may not be free depending on your location, and you can also add shredded cheddar cheese for a slight upcharge. If that's not enough, we encourage you to head on over to the baked potato part of the menu and borrow some of those toppings as well, like sea salt and black pepper, chives, and even buttery spread.

There are a few other extra toppings for baked potatoes that require an upcharge that can load up your chili even more. These include cheddar cheese sauce and applewood smoked bacon. Something else that customers on social media say they can sometimes get is chili seasoning packets. We're not sure how many of these require an upcharge to get, but if you're concerned about accidentally creating an expensive bowl of chili, all you have to do is ask for freebie add-ons only.

Next time you get a bowl of Wendy's chili, we want you to consider looking at it in a new way: As a dipping sauce. While Wendy's offers a variety of dipping sauces and traditional fast food sauces like ketchup, none of them come hot like the chili does, which makes it all the more appealing as a dip.

We've seen people on social media dipping all sorts of things into their Wendy's chili, and you can, too. One popular Wendy's menu item to dunk into your chili is chicken nuggets. They're great for regular nuggets, but if you're a spicy food lover, you might also consider dunking your spicy chicken nuggets in them, too. They're also great as a dip for chicken tenders.

But don't stop with chicken nuggets and tenders. It's also great for dipping your favorite sandwiches in, especially if you get the family size. There are plenty of chicken sandwiches and chicken wraps begging to be dipped or topped with chili. Oddly enough, while you'll find chili cheese fries on the menu, there's no chili cheese burger. And it's not listed as an add-on option on the order menu either. However, you can always order a bowl of chili to use as a burger topping or dip. And if your location has seasoned potatoes, you can increase their spice load by dipping them in your chili as well.

Wendy's launched Baconator chili as a canned grocery store item in February of 2026. It was a chili inspired by the chain's Baconator burger. Oddly enough, there's no Baconator chili on the Wendy's menu. This seems like a lost opportunity to us, but there's nothing stopping you from being inventive and creating your own, even if you can't order it by name.

To create Baconator chili at Wendy's, you need to pay attention to the ingredient list for the burger as well as the canned chili. The canned version includes bacon flavored with brown sugar and smoke, but all the other ingredients seem to be regular chili components. While the Baconator burger has no chili on it whatsoever (unless you add it), it has six pieces of applewood smoked bacon, as well as melted American cheese.

So, you have two choices here. You can either order a regular chili with extra applewood bacon (the extra being key) or you can order it with extra applewood bacon and American cheese. The Baconator burger also comes with Heinz ketchup and mayo, but we'll leave the adding of extra condiments to your chili up to your own discretion, as that may veer a little too much off-script for ordinary chili. We'd go for hot sauce rather than ketchup, and sour cream rather than mayo, if we wanted to add sauces, but that's just us; you do you.

If you're a cheese fan, there are several ways to make your chili extra cheesy. Shredded cheddar is available as an upcharge add-on. However, that's not the only source of cheese on the menu, and the different types available throughout the menu can give you a variety of cheesy flavor profiles to enjoy.

Here are all the cheese options we could find for you. The first option is to double the amount of shredded cheddar cheese you get as an extra add-on. Cheddar cheese will add a bit of sharp umami to the flavor profile. The next possibility is to ask for a slice or two of American cheese, which is the type of cheese that comes on hamburgers like the Dave's Single. American cheese is milder and more creamy, which can change up the flavor and mouthfeel experience considerably. The third option is to borrow from the chili cheese fries menu and order some cheddar cheese sauce to stir into the bowl. Adding cheese sauce will make it more like chili con queso. So, this might be a good option if you're thinking of using it as a dipping sauce.

Additionally, you can mine limited-time menu items for different types of cheeses, like beer cheese sauce or Muenster cheese. Finally, you could opt to mix two or more different cheeses together into the chili for an extremely cheesy version.

We probably don't have to tell you there are ways to upgrade the heat level of Wendy's chili if you like yours spicy. However, you may not have thought of all the possibilities.

First of all, you can add a packet (or several) of Wendy's hot chili seasoning. It's a liquid hot sauce featuring vinegar and hot flavorings. It doesn't add tons of heat, but it does provide a little as well as extra flavor and umami richness. Another option to add heat is to see which hot dipping sauces are currently available and use them as a stir-in. For example, you might find the scorchin' hot sauce that adds both heat, creaminess, and cheese flavors. If ghost pepper sauce ever comes back, you could try adding that as well. Borrowing from the breakfast menu, you can ask for Cholula original hot sauce packets that come with the breakfast burritos (if your location has them).

Other options depend on what else you might find when special items hit the menu. For example, if something like the jalapeño popper chicken sandwich or salad returns, you could swipe some jalapeño peppers. Or if there's a Cajun menu item like the Cajun crunch chicken sandwich, you would swipe some Cajun-seasoned crispy onions or pepper Jack cheese to add.

If you're following the food trend of looking for ways to add extra protein to your diet, you might consider making your chili meatier. It already comes with 19 to 25 grams of protein, depending on the size you order. However, you can up that amount by adding extra meat, thus making the chili heartier.

Something you may not have already known is that the meat in Wendy's chili is supposedly just chopped-up regular hamburger patties. Employees on social media have revealed that if they fry up hamburger patties that don't end up in a sandwich within a certain amount of time, they're cut up and frozen to put into the chili later. So, if you want meatier chili, all you have to do is order an extra hamburger patty, chop it up, and add it in.

Customers report that some locations will allow you to order a hamburger patty in person a la carte for around $1.50. However, others have found that you have to order the burger without the bun or toppings to get it alone. So, whether or not it's practical from a pricing standpoint depends on how flexible your location is.

One way to make your chili creamier and add a different flavor profile is to give it a buttery finish. Yes, buttery chili is a thing. Butter is a finishing fat that might provide something new for you if you've tried Wendy's chili every other way you can think of.

To find the butter at Wendy's, head on over to the baked potato menu. Well, technically, it's not butter; it's buttery spread. As such, you're adding something closer to margarine than butter, but the flavor is similar, and it's going to do the same thing to chili that butter would.

Butter does a lot for the flavor besides making it creamier and richer. It also cuts out any bitterness that may be present from chili powder or cumin. Something else to consider, though, is that adding extra fat can make the spices milder. So, if you like your chili even milder than it already is, butter can help. The fat in the butter is also useful to help cool the heat level down a bit if you've added in a lot of hot sauces and gotten it too hot for your tastes. So you might not start out thinking you need butter in it, but you might end up wanting it after all, in some cases.

One final Wendy's chili trick we have up our sleeves for you is to try adding it to your breakfast sandwich. If you've never thought of Wendy's chili at breakfast, maybe now is the time to start.

First of all, though, you have to find out if your location offers it for breakfast or not. Many don't, and especially not early. According to employees on social media, it's supposed to be heated for four hours before serving. So, you're probably more likely to be able to snag some for your breakfast sandwich if your location opens early (around 6:30 a.m.) and you are ordering it at the tail end of breakfast (10:30 a.m.).

The breakfast item we think would pair best with chili as a sauce or for dipping is the breakfast burrito. As we've previously mentioned, the breakfast burritos already come with Cholula hot sauce packets. However, chili mixes well with the flavors of a breakfast burrito, considering the spices that tend to go into chili recipes, like cumin and chili powder, which are common in Mexican food. Granted, the breakfast burritos aren't truly Mexican, but they're at least Mexican-inspired.

While it's a little less traditional to mix French-inspired croissants with chili, there's no reason why you couldn't try it on a croissant-based or biscuit-based breakfast sandwich as well. After all, chili is an unexpected topping some people add to biscuits. So, it could be an interesting experiment for sure.