When it comes to snacks there’s not much better than a crispy fried onion ring, is there? It’s fun to share a basket with friends. Unfortunately, fried foods are often heavy and make me feel sluggish…not to mention I’m trying to avoid excess oil whenever I can. Oven Fried Onion Rings are a delicious alternative. Don’t stop with onions, though. You can use this technique with many other vegetables, like eggplant and butternut squash.
This recipe comes from Ellie Krieger via The Food Network. It appealed to me because there’s no hot oil involved and for that reason it’s the perfect recipe to make with children. Older children can prep the veggies while younger ones can help with the breading station. Everyone will enjoy picking out their favorite dipping sauce. We used a simple sriracha mayo and teriyaki sauce for ours. Rick also broke out the BBQ sauce.
Setting up a classic breading station for the oven fried onion rings
A classic breading station normally consists of three steps. One with seasoned flour, one with beaten egg, and one with bread crumbs. The idea is the flour sticks to the food, the egg sticks to the flour and the bread crumbs stick to the egg. Sometimes the egg is substituted with another wet ingredient, in this case a buttermilk batter.
Ellie used crushed baked potato chips for the breading, but when reading through the comments I noticed many people substituted bread crumbs.
Add a couple tablespoons of flour to thicken up the batter if necessary, you want the bread crumbs to stick! If you’re gluten-free, use your favorite gluten free breading. Likewise for the low carb folks…instead of potato chips use your favorite crushed pork rinds and low carb baking mix for the breading. (If you’re eating low carb you probably aren’t too concerned with the amount of fat, but at least you won’t have to deal with hot oil).
For meal planning purposes you won’t need to use an entire eggplant or butternut squash. A large onion, half an eggplant and the neck of the butternut squash was sufficient for the two of us.
Ingredients
- 1 cup flour all purpose, gluten free or low carb as desired
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne or hot paprika
- 1 cup buttermilk thickened with 2 tablespoons flour 1 cup of any type of milk can be soured with 1 tablespoon vinegar, I used cream and omitted the flour
- 1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs divided
- 1 large onion sliced into 1/2" thick rings with the rings separated
- 1/2 inch thick slices of eggplant and butternut squash
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450°F and prepare one or two baking sheets with cooking spray
- Put the flour into a bag and season with salt, pepper and cayenne.
- Pour the buttermilk into a large bowl and pour half the panko crumbs onto a plate.
- Set the baking sheet within easy reach.
- Working in batches, shake the onions or other veg with the flour, shake off the excess before dipping into the buttermilk batter then coating with bread crumbs. Arrange on the baking sheet.
- Dividing the bread crumbs into two portions helps prevent them from clumping up as you work. Add more as needed.
- When the tray is full spray the tops with more cooking spray and bake for about 20 minutes or until the coating is brown and crispy and the veggies have softened. Check after 10 minutes and turn the veggies and the tray as necessary for even cooking.
- Serve with your favorite sauces. We liked the sriracha mayo with the butternut squash and the BBQ sauce with the onion rings. The eggplant was great with the teriyaki.
- To make the sriracha mayo mix a teaspoon or so into a half cup of mayo. Add more if you like it hotter.
- Leftovers, if you have any, can be reheated/recrisped in the oven.
Notes
I will be sharing this with the folks at I Heart Cooking Clubs for this month’s potluck. Come on over and see what everyone else has cooked up!
also trying to lay off the ‘fried foods’ and this looks perfect. Glad to know they taste as good as they look. Onion rings are one my all time faves.
I love all your breading suggestions for different diets. You completely nailed this recipe! The coating looks perfectly golden and crispy – it’s incredible! Love that you changed it up to include different veggies. So fun with all the dipping sauces. Awesome!
Despite this being an onion ring recipe, my favorite was the butternut squash with the spicy mayo. Thanks for your kind words 🙂
I couldn’t get the panko to stick that good.I used evaporated milk with 1 tablespoon white vinegar what happened?
Sorry you had difficulties, Anthony. I’ve breaded other things with panko and sometimes the crumbs are very large and don’t conform well to the shape of the food. I also pack the crumbs onto the food and sometimes double dip.
I hope you were able to enjoy the veggies anyway!
Ooh, I love this method. I will have to give it a go. I love fried foods, but I just feel so gross afterwards that I can’t do it anymore – this sounds like a good alternative!
I know the feeling and it’s not a comfortable one. I hope you give this method works for you 🙂
Mmm… these look so good and crispy and I like the slightly healthier baked version–I figure it must cancel out the yummy sriracha mayo sauce! 😉
You’re a very logical person, Deb. hahaha
I adore onion rings but tend to avoid having them often because they are fried. Baking them is a great alternative!
Thanks, Brandy! I hope you give them a try, it’s a good method 🙂
I so want to dig into these right now! They look delicious, and simply looking at them, would never have known they weren’t fried (which is a good thing)! YUM – can’t wait to try them!
We were pleasantly surprised by the crispiness 🙂
I love onion rings and these baked onion rings sound so good to me! i am going to have to give them a try!
I’m sure you all will love them, Chris 🙂
Hi Lydia!
I love the ingredients you use. Gotta try, thanks for sharing! 🙂
Thanks for the kind words, Joyce! Hope you have a great week 🙂
You’ve shown a great and healthy way to make fried veggies and onion. They look perfectly browned and crisped. You can’t tell they were not deep fried in a fryer. I totally buy into the oven fried technique.
Mmmm! Can I call this healthy junk food? I feel like this recipe would totally satisfy french fry and potato chip cravings without being deep fried. What a great recipe to inspire kids and parent’s alike to eat their veggies!
I thought I was the only one who craved “crunchy”!
Oh, those look incredibly crisp and delicious. I love that you tried the technique with other vegetables (and that it worked!)
I picked the others based on tempuras I’ve had in the past. I liked them all but the butternut squash was probably my favorite.
I have made breaded zucchini rounds from Ellie but not this recipe that is slightly different. These look good to try also.
I would have definitely used zucchini if I had some on hand. Thanks!
These look really really good. Lovely and crisp. I am scared of deep frying on a gas hob, but will give these a go.
I just don’t like dealing with all of the oil, so I’ll deep frying whenever possible!
I just picked up another big bag of panko crumbs at the Asian grocer last week, how conveneint 🙂 I’m not a fan of deep frying so oven baked is perfect.
Hope you all enjoy them 🙂 Thanks for dropping by!
WOW!! Is this ever a keeper. I think we should own stock in Panko crumbs because we buy huge sacks of it. We can’t wait to make this. Pinning and printing right now.
We got through spells when we can’t keep any bread crumbs on hand (except freshly made) and then times when the bag will languish in the cabinet. Thanks for pinning, Marisa 🙂
I LOVE onion rings made with proper onions, not those reconstituted ones you sometimes get in restaurants. Proper homemade ones are the best 🙂 And I love that these are oven-baked so they’re a bit healthier!
We can tell ourselves they’re a little bit healthier at any rate…eating the entire batch might destroy the benefits hahaha
Oh yum, that sure looks good! I love onion rings and would have no problem finishing the whole plate!
Me too, I love the crunch 🙂
These look really good!
They were tasty! Thanks for dropping by 🙂
Oh, those onion rings. I want to dig right in.
They were seriously good 🙂 Have a great day!
Love fried onion rings. Never make them though, because — well, just too heavy. These look terrific! Like the technique — can use it with anything. Thanks!
I’m looking forward to experimenting. 🙂 Thanks for dropping by, John.
I agree that the onion ring might just be the best snack ever! I love that this also works for other veggies, and that it isn’t fried!! Yum!
I’m looking forward to cooking zucchini this way.
That’s funny we were talking about fried onion rings with my colleagues today. We all agreed we loved it. Maybe I should do some for them, now that I have the recipe 🙂
I’m sure you all will love them 🙂