My Award Winning Chili! Copy Cat of Wendy's Most Delicious Chili

 Have you ever heard of Todd Wilbur? I found out about him years ago while searching for good recipes online. He takes delicious food from popular restaurants and tries and tests different things until he comes up with a recipe to make it yourself at home that actually tastes pretty close to the exact thing. 

He has several recipe books filled with these cloned "top secret" recipes. Fortunately, he has also put many of them on the internet for us to try. When I first found him he would release one or two of them at a time, and it was always fun for me to see what I could try to make next. 

Over time I tried several of his recipes. But, the one that I've made over and over again is his copy cat version of Wendy's Chili. Before coming across this chili recipe I thought that canned chili was decent enough, and wondered why anyone would ever put in a lot of effort to actually make chili when you could just open a can and be fairly satisfied. I didn't even think I liked chili that much at the time, so wasn't especially motivated to change my thinking.

Well, that all changed once I got taste of this chili. It was SO good! And, as you'll see, not a lot harder than just opening up a couple of cans. I love it, AND my kids all love it, definitely a bonus! 

Of course I started making this recipe long before Pinterest was even a thing, but that didn't stop me from finding it again and pinning it on my fabulous food - dinner board. I never want to lose this recipe! 

You can find it here, and check out some of his other fabulous copy cat recipes. 

                                                           Here's the recipe for Todd Wilbur's

                                                   Copy Cat Wendy's Chili (Makes about 12 servings)

Ingredients: 

2 pounds ground beef

one 29-ounce can tomato sauce

one 29-ounce can kidney beans (with liquid)

one 29-ounce can pinto beans (with liquid)

1 cup cups diced onion (one medium onion)
1/2 cup diced green chili (2 chilis)
1/4 cup diced celery (1 stalk)

3 medium tomatoes, chopped

2 tsp cumin

3 Tbsp chili powder

11/2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp salt

2 cups water

Instructions:

*Brown the ground beef and onion in a skillet over medium heat, crumble into bite sized pieces and drain off the fat

*In a large pot combine the beef and everything else

*Bring to a simmer over low heat

*Cook for 2-3 hours, stirring every 15 minutes

**For spicier chili, add 1/2 tsp more black pepper. For much spicier chili, also add a tbsp of cayenne pepper. For even more kick add 5 or 6 sliced jalapeño peppers to the pot.

Top with your choice of cheese, sour cream, green onions, etc.



This chili tastes even better the second day (yeah leftovers!) when the flavors have had even more time to blend. And it can be frozen for up to a couple of months. So don't be afraid to make a big batch!

As usual I have some variations to this recipe. I usually cook it in my crock pot on low for several hours. I pre cook the meat and onions, but everything else I just throw right into the pot. I usually don't add the water in though, it doesn't evaporate away quite enough in the crock pot and leaves the chili too thin. I also usually just throw in canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones also (unless I have extra fresh ones at the time).

Oh, and about the award winning part of this post... not long ago I made it to bring to a party where they had a chili cook off contest. And guess what? Mine came in first place! I even got a snazzy little chili spoon trophy for winning! In full disclosure I should admit that a few of my many kids may or may not have voted for my chili, possibly skewing the results a little... but it really was yummy!!