I would rather eat onion rings than French fries almost any day of the week. Sadly, I’m discovering more and more restaurants have turned to battered onion rings rather than the breaded onion rings from my childhood. When I find a place that still serves onion rings with a crispy, crumbly coating, it makes it to my favorite list forever.
While I do occasionally indulge in a greasy bar cheeseburger and onion rings, when we eat at home we cook from scratch. We also like to fill the freezer when we get a great deal on something and I’ve finally been able to create a great breaded onion ring that freezes beautifully. The added bonus of making them from scratch is that I can pronounce every single ingredient that goes into them.
A farmer friend had onions that he wasn’t able to sell at the farmers market, so I was gifted with about 60 pounds of mixed onions. In Ohio, Candy Onions are the equivalent of Vidalias and I received those and some large red onions. We sliced them about three-eighths of an inch thick and only used the larger outer rings. Then, we diced the insides of the onions to put into the freezer for winter cooking.
These onion rings take a little time, but I have several bags of onion rings to pull out and pop into the skillet for Saturday football games.
Ingredients for two pounds sliced onion rings:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
2 cups dry bread crumbs
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons granulated garlic (not garlic salt)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a pie plate or round cake pan. Dredge all of the onion rings in the flour, shaking off the excess and layer on a baking sheet.
Mix the eggs, milk and Frank’s in a medium bowl, and then add to the remaining flour in the pie plate, stirring well. Allow to rest for five minutes. The batter should be thick enough to stick to the dredged onion rings but not too thick.
Place a cooling rack over a baking sheet to drain the battered onion rings. Mix the bread crumbs, paprika, garlic and pepper in a second pie plate and set aside.
Dip each onion ring into the batter, shake it a bit and then place on the cooling rack to drain for a few minutes. After battering the rings, coat each one with the bread crumb mixture, gently shake off the excess crumbs and place in a single layer on a baking sheet. Use a second sheet if necessary – it’s very important that the onion rings are in a single layer.
After all of the onion rings are breaded, place the baking sheet in the freezer until the rings are frozen. Store them in an airtight container until ready to use.
My preference is to fry my onion rings because if I’m going to be bad, I’m really going to be bad. Once you’ve got a rhythm in the breading process, the onion rings are rather easy to make. These don’t have to be frozen to taste good and can be fried as soon as they are breaded.
