The Fast Food Burger That Gives You The Most Beef For Your Money

If you're looking to protein-max on beef for a meal, America's fast food burger spots are happy to oblige you. While your standard single at a lot of fast food joints can be a little paltry, most major national chains offer some pretty massive burgers as well, often with three patties. But ordering that much meat can jack up the price as well, so we went looking for the best deal on a big amount of beef you can find — ultimately, we landed on the Dave's Triple at Wendy's.

We based our search on the major fast food burger chains that are known for the best prices and then found the largest burger on each menu. To keep the comparison as much about the beef as possible, we checked the prices on only the most basic toppings available. If cheese cost extra, it wasn't added. NetCredit has done some work on this, finding that McDonald's, Smashburger, Burger King, and Wendy's have the cheapest burgers nationwide per ounce of beef for each's standard burger, so those were our contenders. Only standard menu items were considered, so none of the wild secret menu creations you can make at burger chains.

The race was tight, but in the end the Dave's Triple at Wendy's is the largest burger that delivers the best value for the amount of beef you're getting. With three quarter-pound patties, it clocks in at a hearty 12 ounces of beef, but it was still $0.70 cheaper than the other 12-ounce burger found at Burger King. Both McDonald's and Smash Burger's largest options were a bit cheaper but only offered 8 ounces of beef.

When you do the math on each burger, the value at Wendy's becomes even clearer. At the location we examined in Florida (and prices will vary by location), the Dave's Triple cost only $8.79. That comes to approximately $0.73 per ounce of beef. All the other chains also had locations in the area, with Burger King coming in second. The Triple Whopper cost $9.49 and offered the same amount of meat at $0.79 per ounce. Meanwhile, McDonald's biggest burger on the standard menu is the Double Quarter Pounder, going for $7.39 (about $0.92 per ounce of beef).

Smashburger's patty size was a little harder to deduce than the others, as it's not clearly listed online. However, several reports suggest each patty starts at a quarter pound, and the amount of protein in each burger supports that alleged range. Smashburger's largest standard option is the Double All-American Smash, which was $7.49 at our locations, equaling a final value of $0.93 per ounce.

One honorable mention comes from a smaller SoCal burger chain, Fatburger. Though it has fewer than 100 locations (mostly in California but also in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere), it boasts the single largest fast food burger from a chain we could find: the XXL Fatburger. This "Triple Kingburger" contains 1.5 pounds of beef and is priced at $18.59. It's still slightly less of a deal than Wendy's at $0.77 per ounce, but you won't get that much beef at any other major burger chain.