The BEST Air Fryer Onion Rings

Making homemade

onion

rings

in your air

fryer

is very easy to do, but there are some things you should know if you want to make the

best

onion

rings

and I am going to share with you all my tips, tricks and secrets so that you can prepare them at home, welcome to salted pepper, where we cook in real life using real food and keep it very simple. Today we are going to make a super easy recipe for homemade onion rings. This has been asked and asked and asked. from me, I don't even know how many times, probably a thousand times in the last two years, but guess what it was difficult for me to perfect at least to get exactly the texture, the flavor profile and the onions cooked perfectly, so this was definitely something It took me two years to get to a point where I can say that these are the

best

onion rings for air

fryer

s, so the first thing we are going to do is start cutting the onion because the preparation of the onion is important in the first place .

All you want to do is start with an onion that has been refrigerated and that will help you in the next step which I'm going to get to because there is another onion prep tip that will make a big difference in your homemade onion rings. so refrigerate it overnight if you normally keep them on the counter or if you just bought it at the store now, if you don't refrigerate it it's not a deal breaker it will still work but you may have some problems. in the next step we want to cut it so now we have to cut it nice and cutting a round vegetable can be a challenge so what I found is that if I leave the paper on and just cut a little bit it's not enough. to affect the actual onion rings as we pull them apart, but just make a slightly flat surface, it's much safer to do it with the peel on.

I just take a sharp knife and make a little, I mean, a little flat spot, okay? your onion is not going to leave you, so that's number one. I also leave the peel to cut. Now you can take it off, no problem, but I'll just leave it on. I think it's just as easy, so keep your fingers back. I want to take a sharp knife and first we're going to cut off the stem part, so I'm just making a small cut here because they won't be useful for much as far as onion rings go, but they're great for freezing. and use it for bone broth or different broths you make so you don't have to throw them away.

You can freeze them with the paper on, just put them in a freezer bag. Now we have our onion and we want to cut it. into about half an inch rings make sure to keep your fingers back and hold the onion tight but trust me this is a lot easier when you have that little flat spot so I'm just estimating it's not exact and if you cut a little that It's not like that, exactly half an inch is fine and then where we cut that little area off, you'll see that the skin comes off very easily, so there's our first set of onion rings, now this layer, see what it looks like. like paper, I also put it in the scrap pile, so there's our first set of onion rings that will come apart in just a minute.

I'm going to repeat this process for the entire onion and you want to go down and try to be as uniform as you. You can do this when you're cutting the slices and if they're a little loose that's fine, but if you get a very thin area on one side and a thicker area on the other, they can fall apart when you move on to the breading process, another thing to do . you can do when you like this part where it wobbles a little bit if you don't feel comfortable holding it, put a fork right there and hold it down like we're carving right and then come down and I think I'll do it. get two more good slices, one more after that, one more good slice, so I'm going to go down to the root end here with my fork and cut one more, well that one didn't work, sorry, it happens to all of us .

Think about what happened when I put the fork down while mashing this. Now you can still use them. They just won't be rings, but they would still be delicious. And you know, I'm going to fry them just so they can be seen. Okay, now this is the fun part or maybe not so fun part, but it's necessary, so I said the second tip for preparing onions is going to be the best thing you can do and that is to remove the membrane from each layer. Have you ever gotten an onion ring and you go to bite into it, it's super crispy and it's delicious, you bite into it and suddenly the whole onion falls out, it hits you on the chin, it starts to burn because they're hot as can be and then you There is a fibrous onion left and a breading that has no onion, that's because the membrane was not removed, so we separated them into rings by just gently pushing them out, I'll make some in here. there's a membrane here and when the onion is cold this is much easier to do in fact I can see it peeling here so I hope you can see it so I take it I hold it between my index finger and my thumb and shot. and I try to do it gently so it comes out in one piece like this and that's the membrane, so I'm going to repeat that again because this is very important, it will change the way you feel about onion rings when you do this.

I'm telling you, let me take off the outer layer here and when the onions are hotter they don't tend to come off as much or as easily. Sorry, they come off in pieces. Now it's a little more difficult, some onions. They will separate easier than others too, just be patient because you really want them to wear their cute onion rings, so if I can't see it, I'll take my fingernail and find it and then I'll do it and I'll just take it out, turn it around and I'll take out, okay, go here and put it in our bowl.

Let's repeat that for all the rings. Do it right, so I have these here because I wanted to show you where we made the little cut that made it much safer for us to make the onion rings. We didn't waste the onion because we wouldn't have used this anyway, it's too close to the peel and so it's papery and wouldn't make a good onion ring, but like I said before, don't throw away the scraps, you can put them in your broth to freeze until you want to use them, so I'm going to clean up. Every once in a while we're going to start mixing the batter for our onion rings and start air frying them, so I finished making the vidalia onion, which is the type of onion that I prefer to use for onion. rings, but you can use any type of large onion you want, so you can use a yellow onion, a white onion, even a red onion, so if you have an onion that is extremely strong and you want the flavor to be a little milder or milder, You can go to this step and then fill a container with cold tap water and let it sit for about 30 minutes.

The only thing is that if you do that you definitely need the onion rings to be dry before you coat them, so just keep in mind that you are going to let them dry completely, so I would put them on paper towels until they dry and then you can continue with the recipe, but I usually don't worry, that's why I buy vidalia because they are sweet and soft and are absolutely perfect in onion rings. I love them so now we're going to make a combination of wet dough and dry dough for this recipe which is common for me, that's what I like. what to do, I think it gives the best results on numerous vegetables.

I have several air fryer fried mushroom recipes and I have a fried cauliflower recipe and then I have a delicious chicken nugget recipe and we use the same type of technique, but it varies from person to person. vegetable because, like for example with mushrooms, I cover them with a little flour because they tend to release liquid, onion rings don't do that so we don't need to cover them with flour, but I noticed that the onion rings needed more seasoning. so that's what we're going to do today is season them with this wet dough. I'm going to start with half a cup of beer.

This is cold beer. You can use water. You don't have to use beer. It's perfectly fine. just make sure it's cold water, you don't want any warm ingredients, any warm liquid ingredients in this or you're not going to make it stick to the onion rings as well, so I'm using a tablespoon of cholula and this is space. temperature because I didn't put it in the refrigerator, but I usually use a tablespoon of cholula, that's the hot sauce I prefer, but you can use any hot sauce you want, just be aware of the spiciness level, I think cholula is quite saucey Mild spicy, maybe like Tabasco, so I use a tablespoon.

I tried it with two tablespoons. It was delicious, but it was too much for me. This won't give you a spicy onion ring, so if you want a spicy onion. ring, you're going to want to add a little bit of cayenne or chipotle to the breading, the dry breading, this just adds a little bit of flavor and it's really delicious, then we're going to add a large egg and I've used a large egg and I've used an extra large egg and works well, so we'll just beat them a little with a fork so that the egg disperses throughout the beer and the cholula mixes together.

It doesn't have to be perfect, you can do this in a deeper container if you don't want to make a mess like I'm doing, I think it's the beer causing it to spill because it's a little more carbonated, that looks good. really just a little bit mixed is perfectly fine now we're going to add a little bit of flour and I have three quarters of a cup of flour but I don't want you to go by the measurement alone I want you to go by the look of this wet dough I also heard from someone who was in I think it was the UK or it could have been Canada no it was Canada and she used her flower and it was really gummy in another recipe similar to this one because there are different flowers in different countries.

So she tries to find one that's like an all-purpose American flour. If you need help you can always email Louise at saltedpepper.com and I will try to help you in any way she can. we're going to sift this in this part no one wants to hear that you have to sift it but if you just throw it in you're going to get all kinds of lumps and then if you overwork this you're going to develop the gluten and then you develop the gluten and it becomes a mess. on the onion rings and you don't get that nice crispy texture when you air fry them so take the time and do it this way okay so I do it. about a quarter cup at a time or whatever fits in my small sifter there are tons of different sifters here you can use a bigger one if you want and I just go over the surface until all the flour is on top and then I fold it in with a fork or chopsticks either way, it's fine, so once it's in, I just take my fork and bend it, you'll see it gets a little lumpy, don't worry, it comes out, I promise, it's fine. although I can see a lot of lumps, I don't worry about it, I have a clean surface here, very clean, you know what I mean, not full of flour, so I can move on to the next, the next sifting and of course, some flour.

I fell in love with the size of this, that's not going to make a huge difference, you just don't want to throw it all away or you'll be sitting here forever. This is actually much faster, so I didn't do it. even finish putting in three quarters of a cup, it's probably around, I don't know, maybe there's a tablespoon left because I noticed it was getting a little bit thick, so look how thick it is, it's too thick for what we want, so If that happens to you, don't worry, it's no big deal, add a teaspoon and I mean a teaspoon of water at a time, so I'm just going to put a little bit in there because you don't want to keep chasing.

This means that you should put just enough water to dilute it so that it is perfect and it doesn't take much. You see, we have a pretty smooth dough here, so I'm really happy with that and all those lumps are gone. I didn't beat it, I just constantly folded it and made this kind of excitement, okay, it's better, so it's dripping, this is like a thicker pancake batter, but I want it to be a little thinner, so I'm going to use another one. . teaspoon, so this is what I mean when I say don't necessarily go by measurements when making something like this, look at what the dough looks like, that will give you the best results because the humidity will also influence the flour, so that one One day you can make this recipe and you need three quarters of a cup and the next day you may only need half a cup so go based on how it looks and it looks a little bit better so it's a little bit thinner.

It is not as thin as some of the doughs I make even though it has the same ratio of ingredients, this one is a little thicker, but it will work very well for our onions, so before we go on to bread our onion rings and get The preheated ninja foodie added a little salt to my dough. I didn't put this in the flour because it's sea salt. The granules are a little larger and wouldn't pass through my sieve, so what I do is just sprinkle between them. A quarter and a half teaspoon of salt in this moist dough I found that the onion rings really needed a little more salt to bring out all the other flavors and it worked perfectly so just mix it up. a little bit and now we are ready to bread our onion rings, so now we need to mix some spices with our dry breading mixture.

What I'm usingis one cup of unseasoned breadcrumbs. This is what I found worked best and got the closest texture to what you would get in a fried onion ring, so that's what I'm going to do. Yes, you can add panko. You could do a combination of panko and breadcrumbs. You could probably even make some crushed pork rinds, although there's nothing really keto-friendly about this so I'm not sure why you would. do it, but you can do it if you want if you want to reduce some of these carbs, but I found that pure breadcrumbs with a little bit of seasoning works best, so I'm going to add half a teaspoon of finely ground sea salt and half a teaspoon. teaspoon onion powder, half a teaspoon garlic powder and in some of my test batches, because I've tried it so many times, I added a little bit of cayenne, maybe an eighth to a quarter teaspoon of cayenne and I I like the flavor. but you know, for this recipe I thought I'd keep it a little simpler, so if you don't like spices you won't be disappointed with the breading, so this is very basic, you can be as creative as you want.

You could add some old bay leaf if you wanted to make some crab flavored onion rings which would be delicious, just definitely omit the salt because old bay leaf is quite salty. Now, to bread the onion rings, we will take an onion ring and myself. I use two forks to make this. I think it's the cleanest way for me because I hate getting my hands dirty, believe it or not, even though I love to cook, so I take the onion ring, twist it, and flip it. I turn it over and turn it again and try to cover the entire onion ring with this batter and then lift it with the fork and let the excess drip off, which only takes 30 seconds, if that's okay, that shows. okay, so I throw it in the breading, take a different fork and move the breading over the top to cover it completely.

Now you can start with more breading if you want, so if you want more breadcrumbs here just to make it up a little bit. a little easier or you're going to make a lot more onion rings, you certainly can do that, but what I find if I'm making a double batch is that I like to start with a cup and then add more to it because as I dip the onion rings in the dough and then into the breadcrumbs, they release these little bits that are a little bit larger which, in moderation, actually results in a really nice crispy onion ring, but if you get too much, it gets tough. cover them so I recommend starting with this amount and then adding it as you go but you can do it another way to add more okay so once they are covered we just take them out and set them to cool. rack or you can put them on a parchment plate at this point and I see all the breadcrumbs fall out.

I told Jeff. I told Jeff. Remind me tomorrow before making this video. I need to put a tray underneath because my counter. I got really messy when I was making the final test recipe yesterday, so let me grab a tray. I'm going to finish coating all of this. We'll preheat the air fryer on the grill for a full 10 minutes and I recommend it no matter what. airfryer you are using because you don't have to use the ninja foodie okay this works on the grill it works in an airfry oven although there are some modifications and I will go over them a little later in the video and definitely in the written post but on the grill , a basket air fryer, any type of air fryer that you have, you want to preheat it on the hottest setting, so we're all preheated and now we're going to air fry our first batch of crispy.

How much you can do at a time will totally depend on your air fryer so it will vary, but one thing to keep in mind when you are breading your first batch because I usually bread some fries and some continue to bread while they are. aerate so we can finish, you know, in a reasonable time, so one thing you want to do is make sure you do the big ones and the small ones because the small ones can fit inside the big ones and then you can get more. in your fryer, so let me go ahead and do that.

I have a couple of babies here. Okay, I'm going to use some oil. You can use any type of oil you want, but I recommend a neutral oil, so maybe. an avocado oil would work, you don't really want to use any kind of olive oil or anything like that, and I'm going to spray the basket because that's extremely important to get the best crispy texture, in fact, I'm just going to use my fingers here and we're going to leave this like this, you don't want to use your fingers, you could use a tool or something, I can use this, I guess it's probably a little easier, so I can just get about three or four big ones in this fryer, but like I said, I can take these and put them there and take this one and put it there and take some of these little babies and put them there, well, that. one isn't going to work very well because you don't want it to touch, you definitely want room for air to circulate, put it in there, so I usually make two to three batches depending on how big the onion is probably going to be.

I could have had a few more babies but anyway I'm done I can't have any in there right now so I'm fine you know what I probably can so I can probably put this one in there and I could probably have this guy there we go , it looks good, now give it a good spray on the top with the oil of your choice trying to make sure that all the breading is covered with the oil which is what will give the crunch if you don't. Do this, you won't get a really good crunch. Now let's air crispy.

We are going to air crispy in 360 for seven minutes. You don't have to turn them and it's probably one of the few recipes where I don't actually turn them and that's because the bottom gets really nice and brown which is wonderful for the crunch but I found that if I flipped it over, the top got a little browner and didn't look as good on a plate, so I don't do that. Don't turn these over and that's unusual for me. Well, I'll finish the rest. I'm also going to put some in the oven and on the grill so I can show you the differences and tell you. what can you do if you have the oven or an oven style air fryer because you want to make some changes okay oh my gosh these are beautiful look I have to grab it look oh my gosh and you definitely want to put them on a cooling rack , not on a plate or you will steam them and break up all the crunch from your onion rings.

Oh my gosh these are so perfect I can't get over it, I think about all the times I just wanted to give up and say I can't get the perfect onion ring but luckily I didn't. I'm so happy because I'll make them, I'll make them all the time and you can freeze them so you can make a whole bunch, you know, it's worth two three onions if you want and you can freeze them, cook them and freeze them in parchment trays once they're completely frozen, like this leave them overnight or something, you can put them in a bag and then you can put them back in the fryer without any additional oil, nothing is needed, put them in a preheated fryer at about 360 to 375 degrees for about four minutes and they are perfect.

We just heated some up this morning from frozen, they are absolutely perfect. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and set this back to 360. Press Home. I only have two facts because I was a little busy doing other things, so I only have two facts, but I'm going to go ahead and throw them out. You could also and then drizzle and keep in mind that it looks like I'm putting in a ton of oil, the oil goes down a lot to the bottom so only what sticks to the outside of the breading stays inside. the actual recipe, the rest is included below, okay, turn it down to seven minutes, now I'm going to throw some in the air fryer, airfry oven behind me, okay, so one of the things, one of the differences which can If you're going to use an oven fryer like the one I have there, which is the xl ninja foodie oven, you probably don't want to go right in with your spray bottle and spray all the sides of the oven and everything because it's pretty hard to clean, so you want to put it, put these onion rings on a small tray and then spray them with oil on the tray or on a plate or whatever and then spray them on top, turn them over and spray them again.

On the bottom, the other thing you want to do with an air fryer style oven is preheat for a full 10 minutes, even if your oven, like mine, says to preheat in 30 wells, one of them in 30 seconds, one of them in 90 seconds, but that's not really the case, so they don't come up to temperature as quickly, so you should definitely leave preheating for a full 10 minutes and preheat it again on the highest setting, which is 450 degrees, but I'm not going. to step down to 360 like I did on the Ninja Foodie and Grill because the air fry functions in an oven are not that powerful in my experience, so I'm going to take this to 400 degrees and We're still going to spend the seven minutes and see how they turn out. new.

I'm really happy with the way they look, some of them are turning a little browner than others, but they're definitely fine, put two in, that's fine, so let's move on. and close this and I'm going to set this to 360. and I'm going to leave it at 20 minutes and finish the rest to put them in the foodie ninja and finish our onion rings by then, hopefully, those will be done in the oven and we can give them everyone a little taste so we've got the ninja foodies here we've got the oven here and we've got the grill here everyone's had a chance to cool down. low um the same amount so you know one won't be hot and the other one will be cold we're okay so let's see now this one has a little bit of a golden color and it has some marks on the bottom uh you can avoid that if you you flip, but I like how the tops look when I don't flip them, so that's what I do, all these little crunchies, oh, I can't wait, unreal, to see how that onion stays right where it's supposed to perfect, now historically speaking. "I've never been very happy with the air crisping ability of any airfryer oven or especially the ones I've had, but they look pretty good so let's give it a try, try a little bit of the crispy part here, well, okay, they're good".

They are good, don't get me wrong, they are good, but not that good and I say it every time, but I keep trying, but they are better than what I used to get results-wise when I tried air frying. in the oven and that's because I preheat longer and go to a higher temperature, so if you have an air fryer oven, increase the temperature of a normal air fryer recipe by 25 to 50 degrees and I think you'll get better results in general. here we go, perfect grill, very comparable, very good, so you can be super creative with this, add any type of spices or seasonings you want to your dry or wet mix, in fact, make a batch, freeze them and then take some out . every time you want an onion ring like always make it yours make it delicious and keep it real