Homemade Baked Onion Rings Easy Recipe
Most Sundays we get together in the late afternoon to play games with friends. Instead of putting on a normal family-style dinner for our combined crew of four adults and eight eating children (10 in another year), we lay out various appetizers and finger foods and vegetables and keep it informal.
So, one week I got it into my head that I really wanted to contribute onion rings to the spread. I’d tried fried-on-the-spot onion rings before – twice – and knew that it wasn’t worth it. I wanted a baked option, where we could pull out a whole sheetful to eat straight from the oven.
I browsed a bunch of recipes online (and there are a bunch). But, of course, the other requirement was that the ingredients had to be restricted to using only what I keep on hand, my staple pantry ingredients.
None of the recipes I found used only ingredients I already had. So I – of course – adapted.
Simplified Baked Onion Rings Recipe
Step 1: Prepare to Make the Onion Rings
- Slice onions (sweet onions are best, but yellow will work) thickly. Separate the rings.
- Make batter: Mix a cup or so of flour with a spoonful of cornstarch, a sprinkle of salt, and an equal amount of water or broth.
- Make crumb coating: Mix together fine breadcrumbs (about a cup per onion), half the amount cornmeal as breadcrumbs, a teaspoon of salt or seasoning salt per cup of flour, and a few teaspoons of your choice of seasonings (parsley, paprika, garlic powder, or all of the above).
- Prepare pan: Lightly grease one large baking sheet per onion, or line with parchment paper or a Silpat.
- Preheat the oven to 425-degrees.
Making & Baking the Onion Rings
- Dip each ring of onion first into the batter, coat thoroughly, and shake off excess.
- Then carefully dip in the breadcrumb mixture & coat thoroughly.
- Lay on the prepared pan.
- Bake onion rings at 425-degrees for 18-25 minutes, or until golden. Flip each ring halfway through baking time.
Eating the Onion Rings
Do eat them all hot, straight from the oven. They don’t reheat well and they aren’t good cold.
It’s a little more effort than I often put into a side dish, but it’s a fun one that seems like a treat but counts as a vegetable! It also makes a great party appetizer.
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