Baked Onion Rings

John loves onion rings. Actually, since we started dating, I’ve tried them a few times. They were never my favorite, but when made right, well, what’s not to love about them?! Because they are baked, not fried, there is a different texture component to them. That being said, I almost like these better. I hate going to restaurants, biting into an onion ring and the whole onion coming out of the breading. EW! Obviously I’m not going to eat the rest of the breading on its own, so it’s like they just served you a bunch of onions. Not cool. These bake for long enough that the onions are extremely soft. That means when you take a bite, you get an actual bite!I used homemade breadcrumbs and Ritz reduced fat crackers for the coating, which I thought was good. It was what I had in the house, but you could also use commercial breadcrumbs or panko. Panko would have been a good alternative. The process is a little labor intensive; I had 4 stations–milk, flour, egg, and breadcrumbs/Ritz. The flour and Ritz mixtures were both in bags. This really helped on the clean-up end! It also kept from getting my hands gross.

This is a great one to make with the kids. They can help pop out the onion “rings” and put each one on a station. I wish I had all that help! Anyway, the milk I had all of the onions sitting in and then one at a time they got the rest of the station treatments.

Baked Onion Rings

Serves: 4

1 white onion, peeled and cut into slices

1 cup fat-free milk

1 cup flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1/2 cup Ritz cracker crumbs

1 tablespoon garlic powder

2 teaspoons italian seasoning

2 teaspoons black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray and set at the end. Then, set up the four stations. Put milk in one bowl; flour in a resealable bag; lightly mix the eggs and place in a second bowl. Combine the breadcrumbs, Ritz crumbs, garlic powder, italian seasoning, and pepper. Place this in a second bowl. Separate the onions, carefully, into rings. Then, dip each ring into the milk, flour, eggs, and Ritz mixture in that order. Place onto the cookie sheet. Continue until all rings have been done. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove the rings from the onion and flip them so they get crunchy on both sides. Bake for an additional 10 minutes. Let cool until they can be easily handled (about 2 minutes) before serving.

I hope these set you up for an amazing weekend! This weekend is theNew England Soup Challenge that I have been waiting for weeks for! I can’t wait to see new and old friends, and cook some delicious soup! The trip to Martha’s Vineyard would of course, always be wonderful, but sometimes the best part of the experiences are the journeys…regardless of the winner!

Until the next time my oven is on…