Chili's Vs Applebee's: Who Has The Best Burger?

As rising fast food prices prompted more customers to order out less frequently, sit-down chains like Chili's and Applebee's began courting anyone increasingly unable to find cheap eats. Chili's, notably, introduced a "3 For Me" combo in 2022, consisting of an entrée, an appetizer, and a non-alcoholic drink, starting at $10.99 with various upgrades possible. Then, in 2024, the chain expanded the combo's range of entrées. Applebee's, meanwhile, debuted a "Really Big Meal Deal" in November 2024, pairing a sandwich with fries and a drink for $9.99. Now that both Chili's and Applebee's are attempting undercut the prices of fast food restaurants, more people than ever may well be opting for burgers from these two chains over names like, say, McDonald's or In-N-Out.

With this new epoch of casual dining in mind, I ordered one standard cheeseburger and one bespoke burger creation from both Chili's and Applebee's. I pitted them against one another in a variety of categories in order to decide which chain has the best burger overall. From Chili's, I chose the Oldtimer With Cheese and the Bacon Rancher Burger — the latter of which comes with two patties, bacon, ranch, sautéed onions, and pickles. At Applebee's, I opted for a Classic Cheeseburger and a Whisky Bacon Burger — topped with pepper jack, crispy fried onions, bacon, standard veggies, and steak sauce infused with a dose of the notorious Fireball Cinnamon Whisky. After tasting and analyzing all four burgers, I made a decision. See which chain has the best burger.

Before tasting any of my four burgers, I began by comparing their respective looks. An ugly, delicious burger may be better than its beautiful and bland counterpart, but visual appeal can add value to an already solid dining experience all the same. That said, the sole difference of note between my two standard cheeseburgers was merely a more expansive slice of melted cheese on my Applebee's burger. Altogether, they both contained meat visibly crisped up on the outside and a few veggies poking out from atop their bottom buns. The top bun on my Applebee's burger was also a little taller, slimmer, and darker, but none of those elements felt like they had any qualitative impact.

Meanwhile, my Applebee's Whisky Bacon Burger was piled high with ingredients, sauce dripping from thick bacon and ample fried onions, both nearly overflowing. But even more extravagant was my Chili's Bacon Rancher Burger — its two measly buns could hardly contain such a generous helping of bacon, and its double patties somehow looked like even more than twice the meat of its single-pattied companion. Under the stress of so much pure meat, its bun became wrinkled, adding to an impression of abundance. Since my standard cheeseburgers basically looked the same, the exemplary appearance of the Bacon Rancher Burger single-handedly wins the looks category for Chili's.

In order to break down the tastes of each of my four burgers component by component, I started by isolating bites of their buns. Of course, the buns on my two pairs of burgers from each chain were identical, so in this category, differences between each chain's standard and more unique burgers played no part.

The first thing I noticed about the Chili's burger bun was how sweet it tasted. Texturally, it's just slightly firm and lightly toasted — both nice qualities, but neither of which affected its flavor half as much as its pronounced sweetness. Both chains boast brioche buns on their burgers, and I found my Applebee's buns to be the superior representation of the style. Altogether, my Applebee's buns were more balanced, still sweet but more subtly so. Also apparent was a higher degree of toasted-ness and a just slightly firmer heft without sacrificing an overall soft character. For their more complex composition, the Applebee's burger buns win out over their competition.

On my two standard cheeseburgers, a variety of differences between the vegetables at Chili's and Applebee's were immediately apparent. Chili's burgers come standard with a tomato slice, diced red onion, pickle slices, and shredded lettuce. For what it's worth, the quality of the tomato was pretty average, whereas the onion pieces were milder in flavor than a typical onion. My pickles were pretty salty, but not to an extent unusual for a pickle. Meanwhile, Applebee's uses the same combination of vegetables but serves them as whole onion slices, intact leaves of lettuce, and ridged bread-and-butter style pickles. Accordingly, the Applebee's onion tasted stronger, and the pickle slices were sweeter.

The Chili's Bacon Rancher Burger is intentionally light on vegetables so it offered no additional insight. However, the Applebee's Whisky Bacon Burger includes fried onion pieces, which I found to be a great additional vegetable element. Some fried onion pieces had fallen off the burger and into my fries, and they were delicious on their own. Non-standard vegetables on the Chili's burger menu include sautéed onions and jalapeños, but nothing quite like those fried onions. Applebee's takes the vegetable category for its more flavorful raw onion, its veggies that were kept intact, and its fried onions — still technically a prepared vegetable — that ended up being the most delicious of all the veggies I sampled.

Of the four burgers I ordered, bacon came on the Chili's Bacon Rancher Burger and the Applebee's Whisky Bacon Burger. The menus at both restaurants include at least a couple additional bacon burgers, so bacon quality affects plenty more than just the burgers I tried.

What stood out most to me about the Chili's bacon was a strong smoke flavor. Chili's specifically labels this as Applewood-smoked bacon, but if I had to guess, I would presume it adds liquid smoke or something equivalent based on just how strong that flavor came through. Texturally, it balanced a mild crispiness with a slight chewiness, perhaps going for a best-of-both-worlds approach. The Applebee's bacon was crispier and milder, albeit with a more apparent meat flavor. That said, while there were things I liked more about the Applebee's bacon, the bolder, smokier Chili's bacon added more to its burger on the whole. While I might prefer the Applebee's bacon as part of, say, a breakfast platter, Chili's wins the bacon category for how well its decidedly single-minded approach results in a superior burger ingredient.

Unique sauces at both Chili's and Applebee's are numerous, from the former chain's house BBQ to the latter's home-made garlic mayo. Only my Bacon Rancher Burger and Whisky Bacon Burger sported any sort of signature sauce, so this category is inherently limited in scope. Nevertheless, since sauce can handily make or break a burger, I thought it was appropriate to compare the house ranch at Chili's to the Fireball Cinnamon Whisky-infused steak sauce at Applebee's.

First off, the Chili's ranch is solid. Its flavor is umami-forward, with the herbaceous-ness that can color certain ranch dressings effectively absent. I liked its taste, but, partially because it's more generically umami-rich than ranch-y, and mostly because my Chili's didn't include a ton of ranch on my burger, I found it somewhat negligible in the overall Bacon Rancher Burger experience. The Applebee's Whisky Bacon Burger was practically the opposite in this regard, revolving entirely around its steak sauce — it was doled out amply, and it was the single most prominent flavor component. Like a typical steak sauce, the Applebee's Fireball Cinnamon Whisky-infused recipe is predominately sweet, colored by a subtle bourbon-y element that reminded me more of an additive-free bourbon than Fireball specifically. On some bites it was even a little too sweet. But overall, this steak sauce wins this category for Applebee's, given that it succeeds as a pretty solid backbone for the burger.

Ahead of my burger showdown, I believed that size was an appropriate category given that some customers value bang for their buck above all else. I was surprised to find out, then, that three of my four burgers were all essentially the same size. For this category's sake, I measured every burger with a ruler, and — doing my best to come up with average measurements, factoring out burger ingredients that stuck out abnormally far — the Chili's cheeseburger, the Applebee's cheeseburger, and the Applebee's Whisky Bacon Burger were all about 4.5 inches in diameter and 3.25 inches tall.

While a greater abundance of ingredients might have made the Whisky Bacon Burger just slightly more substantial within those dimensions, the Bacon Rancher Burger was enough of an outlier to secure a win for Chili's single-handedly. I estimated it was 4.75 inches by 3.75 inches. Plus, the Bacon Rancher Burger was the densest of all four, making full use of its larger form. My single largest burger of all, then, came from Chili's.

Quality of ingredients doesn't tell the whole story of a hamburger — how those ingredients are portioned out in relation to one another can sometimes end up being even more important than how any single one of them tastes. I found that the burger with the worst ratio of ingredients was my Chili's Oldtimer With Cheese. While it did, of course, contain some vegetables and cheese, its two predominate flavors came from mustard and its sweet bun. Comparatively, on the Applebee's Classic Cheeseburger, the flavor of its cheese slice was more noticeable, and its larger veggies were more prominent. Combined with the more balanced flavor of its bun, each bite of the Classic Cheeseburger had at least a little bit of everything.

My Chili's Bacon Rancher Burger was composed with a solid ratio of ingredients, albeit in service of a simplistic need to maximize meat. Every bite was dominated by beef and bacon as intended. While satisfying, the combination of ingredients on the Applebee's Whisky Bacon Burger was similarly effective and in service of something more elegant, if such a word can be used to describe chain restaurant fare. Between standard veggies, crispy onions, meat, and ample sauce, the Whisky Bacon Burger presented the greatest number of flavors and textures, all of which added up to something gratifyingly cohesive. Applebee's, then, wins this category both on the strength of its basic cheeseburger's baseline quality and the Whisky Bacon Burger's more complex construction.

At both Chili's and Applebee's, customers can choose from a few levels of done-ness when ordering a hamburger. Options at Chili's range from no pink to pink to well done, whereas options at Applebee's consist simply of pink or no pink. I opted for no pink on both of my basic cheeseburgers and pink meat on my more unique burgers.

It turned out that, not only was the meat on both of my cheeseburgers essentially the same, but the meat that was supposed to be pink on my Applebee's Whisky Bacon Burger ended up practically identical to both of my no-pink patties. The meat on all three of those burgers was lightly crispy on the outside and pretty much just tasted mildly like ground beef. It's worth noting that Chili's used to serve grass-fed beef, but it quickly gave up on the concept, paving the way for this baseline level of sameness between the two chains.

My best burger patty was one of two on my Chili's Bacon Rancher Burger. Simply put, a rarer preparation resulted in a richer flavor. That said, that richer patty was considerably more pink than its twin. So, while it turns out both Chili's and Applebee's might not always prepare burgers the way they say they're going to, the fact that Chili's served me the single best patty on any of my burgers wins this category for Chili's.

Hardly anyone is going to order a burger at Chili's or Applebee's and expect something that's not, at minimum, sort of bad for your health. That said, it's still plenty valid to opt for whatever is the least detrimental choice from either restaurant. Since the more unique burgers are outliers — avoid the Chili's Bacon Rancher Burger at all costs if healthfulness is a concern — I'm opting to compare just my baseline cheeseburgers.

Adding in values for a side of fries, since Applebee's doesn't offer data on its burgers sans fries, one Chili's Oldtimer With Cheese totals 1,260 calories, 70 grams of fat, 24.5 grams of which are saturated fat and 3 grams of which are trans fat, 130 milligrams of cholesterol, 1,860 milligrams of sodium, 104 grams of carbs, 8 grams of fiber, 10 grams of sugar, and 54 grams of protein. At Applebee's, a Classic Cheeseburger with fries totals 1,210 calories, 72 grams of fat, 25 grams of which are saturated fat and 1.5 grams of which are trans fat, 120 milligrams of cholesterol, 2,490 milligrams of sodium, 94 grams of carbs, 7 grams of fiber, 8 grams of sugar, and 50 grams of protein.

Based on those numbers, this category has no winner. Someone prioritizing lower calories or less trans fat — the types of fat you eat matter more than you think — might prefer Applebee's, while someone prioritizing lower levels of sodium should opt for Chili's, meaning that neither chain's burgers are clearly more healthful overall.

First off, both Chili's and Applebee's franchise restaurants, so prices can vary depending on location. With that said, before taxes, an Oldtimer With Cheese at my local Chili's costs $12.39, and a Bacon Rancher Burger costs $18.89. At an Applebee's just minutes away, a Classic Cheeseburger costs $12.99, and the Whisky Bacon Burger is $15.99.

Right off the bat, the Chili's cheeseburger is a slightly better value, given what is effectively nutritional equivalence to its cousin at Applebee's at a lower price point. That tracks, since there are a number of reasons Chili's is so cheap overall. Meanwhile, even if the Bacon Rancher Burger is considerably more expensive than any other option, it also comes with the most meat — which is more expensive than bread or veggies, of course — and totals 2,110 calories with fries. The Whisky Bacon Burger is 1,590 calories with fries. Because that increase in price is more than proportional to added value, then, it's fair to consider the burgers at Chili's to be a better value than the burgers at Applebee's.

Of my 10 categories, one was a tie, four went to Applebee's, and five went to Chili's. That score accurately reflects my overall thoughts after comparing burgers from both chains. While each restaurant does a few things better than the other and the competition was close, I ended up enjoying my burgers from Chili's just a bit more than my burgers from Applebee's.

For what it's worth, ranking my four burgers from bottom to top, I liked the Chili's Oldtimer With Cheese the least, followed by the Applebee's Classic Cheeseburger, then the Applebee's Whisky Bacon Burger. The Chili's Bacon Rancher Burger sits in the top spot. That Bacon Rancher Burger was so much better than any of the other three burgers. It more than compensated for a somewhat poor showing from the Chili's cheeseburger. It's worth noting that the Chili's burger menu offers more burgers with bacon or extra meat than the Applebee's menu, so what I liked about that Bacon Rancher Burger is available in a number of additional burger options. With that said, Applebee's did provide the superior plain cheeseburger based on factors like veggies, bread, and ratio of ingredients. In fact, 35% of people polled by Mashed said the best burger at Applebee's is a classic bacon cheeseburger, so traditionalists may want to go there instead. Nevertheless, that wasn't enough to defeat the larger size, monetary value, superior beef, and superior bacon at Chili's, whose burgers win this competition.

I ordered all four of my burgers online from Chili's and Applebee's restaurants minutes away from one another, both in the suburbs of Las Vegas, Nevada. I picked up all of my burgers in the same trip, and they were ready just as I arrived at each restaurant, suggesting similar levels of freshness.

After I brought them home, I cut all four burgers in half. From one of each half, I was able to sample ingredients individually in order to deconstruct just what made each burger function. The other half of each burger remained intact so I could enjoy every burger whole as it's intended to be eaten. I had at least two bites of each ingredient and each intact burger half, or more in cases where I needed to dial in my findings. My opinions are based entirely on this single sitting and not my thoughts on prior trips to either Chili's or Applebee's.