by Bottom Line: The Loaded Nacho Cheeseburger from Wendy’s is an odd combination of ingredients, but it still delivers a tasty burger and it brings some heat.
If you thought that the Chicken Sandwich Wars were pretty brutal these days, you may have forgotten about the constant scramble among fast food chains to get people to come to the drive thru to buy up burgers. Despite the rising prices of beef along with the health and environmental concerns from that type of meat, people still love their burgers and there are lots of places out there slinging those patties. Wendy’s passed up Burger King in 2020 to become the Number 2 burger chain (with the monolithic Golden Arches still standing as Number 1), and the little place that Dave Thomas founded is not resting on its laurels.
Just recently, Wendy’s has decided to attract customers with a new and spicy option that they call the Loaded Nacho Cheeseburger. That one comes with a quarter pound of fresh, never-frozen beef, American cheese, hot and crispy corn and tortilla strips, spicy chipotle sauce, poblano queso, lettuce, and tomatoes on a jalapeño cheddar bun. You can also get it as a double or a triple, but considering the calorie count (see below), I advise sticking with the single.
They use fresh ground beef (and always have) and that makes for a good burger that is a notch above your average fast food offering. The “hot and crispy corn” is basically corn nuts, though maybe not as hard on the teeth as the ones you typically find in the snack aisle. Those along with the tortilla strips are well-seasoned and they add some crunch to the burger. Obviously, that is their way of replicating the nacho crunch, but it is a bit weird on a burger. Still, it’s not a deal breaker.
The two cheeses add plenty of creaminess along with a bit of sharpness, and the chipotle sauce piles on with the creaminess. All three blend together into a goopy conglomeration of toppings, but they deliver some good taste and a kick of heat. The lettuce and tomato seem out of place, but they don’t really detract from the burger. The jalapeño cheddar bun does not add too much flavor-wise, but it does hold everything together well enough. Ultimately, this seems like an oddly cobbled-together set of ingredients that does not necessarily recreate loaded nachos, but it all works well enough to deliver a tasty burger. And surprisingly, it is not as messy as you might think.
As for the heat, the first couple of bites do not deliver much of a kick. But there are enough spiced-up ingredients here that they eventually add up and the burn starts to come through. I would put this above Mild on my scale and approaching Medium. And if you were to ask for them to add some jalapenos (why aren’t those already on a burger with “nacho” in its name?) or you were to throw on a few drops of hot sauce, this might go past the Medium heat level.
Calorie-wise, you have to expect that this one adds up with all those ingredients stuffed inside. The single comes in at 710 cals (and 43 grams of fat!) which is pushing things up for a fast food burger. If you add on a medium order of fries, that brings another 350 cals and you will have some penance to pay at the gym. And don’t even think about that double (980 cals) or triple (1280 cals) unless you are having nothing by fruit and vegetables for the rest of the week!
This burger is somewhat pricey at $6.89 for the single by itself. I got the combo with medium fries and a drink, and that brought my total to over twelve bucks. That’s not quite Five Guys price overload (you need to take out a loan to get a burger there!), but rather high for Wendy’s. Next time I may just get the burger to keep the cost (and the calories) down. And there will almost certainly be a next time because I rather liked this spicy new offering from Wendy’s. It is of course visiting from Limited-Time-Only-Ville, but they are promoting it pretty heavily these days. Hopefully, it will stick around for a while, but I would advise heading to the drive thru sooner rather than later to give it a try.
Nutrition Info:
Calories: 710
Fat: 43g (17g Sat/1.5g Trans)
Protein: 33g
Carbs: 51g
Sodium: 1390mg
I was so excited to buy the nacho burger, but what a big disappointment and then the fries were so soggy in the box and the top loaded with steam. 12$. down the drain. No a winner Wendy. M. Stewart