Wendy’s has remodeled its 99-cent menu, adding the Cheesy Cheddar Burger and Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe. Still available: a small Frosty, Monterey Ranch Crispy Chicken Sandwich, a baked potato with sour cream and chives, and the single best buy in any drive-thru, five Spicy Chicken Nuggets for 99 cents.

Here’s the Cheesy Cheddar Burger blueprint: a 2.2-ounce beef patty topped with a slice of cheddar cheese and a few good squirts of cheddar-cheese sauce on a plain ol’ burger bun. So simple, so elegant, so cheesy.

Total calories: 300. Fat grams: 15. Sodium: 720 mg. Dietary fiber: 1 g. Carbs: 25 g. Manufacturer’s suggested retail price: 99 cents.

With this lean economy (you may have heard this mentioned on Fox News), the value menu has become a big fast-food player. But while other chains are eliminating some cost-prohibitive meat items, downsizing others (McDonald’s removed one slice of cheese from its $1 Double Cheeseburger) or merely raising prices, Wendy’s has created a pretty nifty new cheeseburger for less than a buck.

To be fair, Wendy’s discount Cheesy Cheddar Burger isn’t super duper, like its new $2.99 W Cheeseburger or $3.49 Dave’s Hot ‘n Juicy Cheeseburger. But for 99 cents, the Cheesy Cheddar Burger is definitely duper.

A big selling point of the Cheesy Cheddar Burger is that it’s one thicker patty that stays juicy, instead of two paper-thin patties, like McDonald’s McDouble, which are overcooked and as dry as PBS’s prime-time programming. Except when it’s Pledge Week. That’s when PBS gives us the Rolling Stones in concert. The rest of the time — “American Experience: Tupperware.” I’m serious. It’s airing on Valentine’s Day.

Sure, Tupperware’s “burp” is the sound of freshness, but a Stones concert is almost enough to get me to write a check. Thanks for talking me down, YouTube.

The Cheesy Cheddar patty is made from 100 percent, never-frozen North American beef. Each patty is seasoned only with salt and grilled to order. So stand to the side, wait two minutes and try not to take my order when it’s called.

You get a double dose of cheese here — one slice of cheddar and a shmear of cheddar-cheese sauce. If the burger is hot enough, and you’ve got a little patience, make that two shmears of cheese sauce.

Surprisingly, even with the thicker 2.2-ounce patty and a double shot of cheese, the Cheesy Cheddar Burger weighs in at only 300 calories and a manageable 15 fat grams.

Something else I like about this burger is its old-school simplicity. It’s just meat and cheese — no condiments, no onions to pull off, no lettuce to fall on your lap. I’ve always thought it presumptuous for burger joints to put ketchup, especially mustard and definitely mayo on a burger as a standard package.

When the friendly cashier hands you a bag of five Cheesy Cheddar Burgers, politely say, “Please throw in a few packets of ketchup.” That’s all you need to customize these burgers to minimalist perfection.