How to Make Onion Rings

This post first appeared on Real Housemoms where I am a contributor.

Learn how to make Onion Rings at home. They’re super easy to make and you enjoy them fresh and crisp right in your own kitchen!

What goes best with homemade onion rings? My favorite choice is to get a little crazy and have homemade blue cheese dressing to dip them in, getting the crunchy, sweet, salty, and zingy flavors all in one bite!

These onion rings are so crispy and delicious! I could totally clear a plate of these on my own, but I do like to share. I usually make them to have with our dinner, especially with a burger, have you ever tried a juicy burger topped with onion rings and barbecue sauce?! SO GOOD!

Why We Love Onion Rings

Restaurant quality fried onion rings can be made at home, and you get them immediately instead of having them after they sit and start to get soggy on the way to your table. You get the fried crispy goodness fresh out of the oil, while the batter is still crunchy and the onion is still fresh. There is a lot to be said for onion rings that haven’t been frozen and then thrown into a fryer with everything else being made too.

Once you try making them at home for yourself, you will prefer these to take out every time. I have started adding these homemade onion rings to a lot of our favorite sandwiches and they add exactly what was missing every time; burgers, barbecue, shredded chicken, and anything else you pile on a bun is made better with fresh onion rings!

Ingredients

All-Purpose Flour: To make the batter crunchy

Seasoned Salt: Adding flavor to the batter

Baking Powder: gives the batter the perfect texture

Water: mix up the batter ingredients together and thin it out a little

Egg: holds all the batter ingredients together

Oil: this is what you fry these golden onion rings in

Onion: Yellow onion or sweet onion is my favorite for this recipe

How to Make Onion Rings

This process is pretty simple. All you do is slice the onions, make the batter, dip the onion rings, and fry until golden. Because this recipe is so simple it’s all about quality ingredients and doing it right.

How to Cut Onion Rings

Typically onion rings are made with yellow, white, or sweet onions. White onions being more pungent than the other two varieties.

I personally prefer sweet onions for this recipe. As the onions cook, they get sweeter and it’s just so tasty! Yellow onions are my second choice. I like their mild flavor and they stand up to the batter well.

PEEL the onions by cutting off the top of the onion – NOT the root end – and then peeling the outer papery layer off.

CUT the onions into 1/4-inch slices. Be careful since there’s no flat bottom to keep it from rolling. Then discard the roots.

SEPARATE the onion slices into individual rings. You can discard the very center rings or fry them up too.

How to Make Batter for Onion Rings

Making onion ring batter is super easy. Just whisk a few ingredients together until smooth and get dipping! It’s also easy to tweak an ingredient or two so your onion rings are just how you like them.

Do you like Beer Battered Onion Rings? Switch out the water with a red lager.

Want to add a little spice to the batter? Try adding a teaspoon of hot sauce, Sriracha, or even Sriracha salt.

WHISK together the batter ingredients until smooth. The batter will be sort of runny.

DIP dip an onion ring into the batter. Lift and let any excess batter run off back into the bowl. It won’t seem like the onion is very well coated, but it’ll be good.

FRY place the battered onion into hot oil and fry until golden and crispy, flipping once. Then transfer the onion rings to a paper towel-lined baking sheet to drain.

Tips & Tricks

• If you have trouble holding on to the onion while slicing, use a fork to gently poke into the onion a little bit further back than you’re slicing so your hand is out of the way.
• You can slice your onion while it is frozen if you have trouble with your eyes watering, but let the slices come up to room temp and thaw completely before dipping and frying.

Onion Ring Sauce

These onion rings are SUPER delicious all by themselves, but if you want to jazz things up try some sauces for dipping! These are some of my favorite options, and I think you’ll love them too!

• Homemade Ranch Dressing
• Old Bay Sauce
• Bang Bang Sauce
• Homemade Ketchup
• Bourbon Barbecue Sauce
• Remoulade Sauce
• Fry Sauce

See how easy that is?! Once you make this onion ring recipe, you’ll wonder why you don’t do it more often! It takes just as long to make them from scratch as it does to heat your oven and bake the frozen ones. Tell me what you chose to dip your onion rings in below, I love hearing how everyone chooses to enjoy their onion rings.

More delicious recipes

• Buffalo Blue Cheese Burgers
• Meatloaf Sliders
• French Onion Dip
• Roasted Garlic BBQ Chicken Wings
• Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Pork