The England international has been missing all season after a serious knee injury but came off the bench to rescue a win for the Gunners, who moved to within two points of leaders Leicester with the 2-1 win.
Jamie Vardy had put the Foxes ahead with a penalty on the stroke of half-time having been tripped by Nacho Monreal but, after Danny Simpson was sent off after picking up two yellow cards in five minutes, Theo Walcott levelled after coming off the bench.
With Arsenal laying siege to Kasper Schmeichel's goal, Wenger threw on Welbeck, who had played just an hour for the under-21s as he strives for fitness having not played a senior game since last April, and the former Manchester United man was on hand to glance home Mesut Ozil's free-kick in the fifth minute of added time.
"You know Danny Welbeck, he is a great guy, with a great mentality. He worked extremely hard. That is why he is fit," Wenger said, having only decided to put the forward on the bench at the last minute.
"(I decided) yesterday. In the last two days he was convincing in training. I planned at the start, when I made my press conference on Friday morning, to play him next week.
"But in the last two training sessions he was very strong and I decided just in the end to include him in the squad.
"It was a great decision because Danny Welbeck is a great player, and you never know in our job, if somebody else had come on, would he have scored or not?
"But everybody is extremely happy for him, because he has been out for 10 months, that is an eternity for a player. We work very hard, our medical team, our fitness team, to bring him back so strong. Let's not forget he has not played one minute for us."
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