Onion Rings

Everyone loves fries but for me Onion Rings are the unsung hero of the junk food world. They are crunchier than french fries and more complex because they have that delicious sweet and savory onion flavor. You can find recipes that show you how to fry these but I am a huge fan of oven frying. It’s way less messy and less scary than reaching your hands into a cauldron of hot oil.

Onion Rings take a little work but when you bite into these you are going to love yourself for putting in the work. Create a little onion ring assembly line on your counter. Each ring will go into flour, then a wet mixture, and then finally our secret weapon: ground up saltines and potato chips.

The sheet pans get a coating of oil before hitting the oven. Once the oil starts to smoke you carefully place your rings on the hot pans and let the oven do its thing. You will turn the pans and flip your rings as they cook so that everything gets evenly brown and crispy. Once done let them drain on paper towels briefly and then they are ready for dunking and eating. I like dunking mine in barbecue sauce or ranch dressing.

Onion Rings (In the oven) Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
30 saltine crackers
4 cups kettle-cooked potato chips
2 large yellow onions cut into rings
6 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil

Heat your oven to 450 degrees. Pro-tip: If you live in a cozy little house like me, take down your smoke detector for a bit cause unless your oven is spotless clean, you might get a little smoke going from your oven at this temperature.

Create your onion ring assembly line by placing 1/4 cup of the flour in a shallow dish, beating the egg and almond milk together in a medium bowl and then whisking the remaining flour, salt, pepper, and cayenne into the almond milk mixture. Pulse your saltine crackers and potato chips in the food processor until finely ground. Place these in a separate bowl. Your assembly line now has 3 stops: flour, buttermilk mixture, and ground crackers and chips.

Get a friend to help you with this step… Dip each onion ring one at a time into the flour. Shake off the excess flour then dip the ring into the buttermilk mixture. Let the excess wet ingredients drip back into the bowl and then dip the ring into the cracker/ potato chip bowl. Put each finished onion ring on a large plate together.

Pour 3 tablespoons of oil onto a baking sheet. Then pour the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil onto a second baking sheet. Spread the oil around with your fingers or a brush to make sure the sheets are evenly coated. Put both of these sheets into your hot oven (with nothing but the oil on them) until they start to smoke just a little. (about 8 minutes)

Placed your prepared onion rings onto the hot baking sheets and enjoy that sizzle. Let these bake for 8 minutes then using tongs flip over each of the rings. Turn each sheet pan 180 degrees. Bake for another 7 minutes until your rings are golden brown. Take out both sheet pans and shake generously with salt. And that’s it!