Oven Baked Onion Rings – Baked, not fried! Serve them up with a spicy dipping sauce for the perfect party appetizer or game day snack!
My first-favorite side option for a hamburger is french fries, hands down. I just love them soooo much! Slathered in fry sauce ideally. (If you don’t know what fry sauce is, you are really missing out and need to visit Utah. No, it is not ketchup. Ketchup is ketchup. Fry sauce is fry sauce)
Ha, speaking of fry sauce… when my husband I were first married we traveled for about six weeks for his work. We stayed in Chicago Illinois, Dallas Texas, and Washington D.C. and I embarrassed my brand-new husband by asking for fry sauce in every single state. They had no idea what I was talking about. How do you people live without fry sauce???? Seriously.
So, french fries are my first-favorite hamburger-side dish (or really my favorite side dish for any dish, ever) but, onion rings are probably second or third on the list. If they are made right. If they are crunchy and seasoned properly (meaning, seasoned at all because sometimes they just have breadcrumbs and no seasoning which is not acceptable) and they must have a rockin dipping sauce. Ketchup will not do. I must have something more.
Thus far, I have never fried in my house. Crazy right? I just don’t fry. But sometimes a girl’s gotta have onion rings. Especially around football time. The oven is often very underestimated in its ability to do more than produce a batch of cookies or a cheesy breakfast casserole. Ovens can also deliver the most delicious, crispy baked-not-fried onion rings. These ones are perfect! Just enough crunch, but there’s still onion in there you know? I’ve ordered onion rings a few times that came so deep-fried that there was only the empty shell left, the onion had disintegrated. True story. But these crispy Oven Baked Onion Rings come out with a crunchy outside and a juicy onion inside. So good! And the dipping sauce? Heaven. So simple yet so amazing! These Oven Baked Onion Rings are game day approved so plan on making a batch pronto!
What people are saying about these Oven Baked Onion Rings
“Made Them, Loved Them, Ate Them ALL! And they’re baked, can’t get better than that!” – Ana
“These were great!!! I’m not sure if you changed the instructions by now or not, but I wasn’t confused at all. I made them gluten and dairy free and they were amazing!!! I think I’ll omit the cayenne next time though lol, not because I didn’t like it, but my little siblings are weird with “spicy” things. I’ll make this again though for sure, they were WAY better than the fried onion rings I’ve tried to make” – Jen
“Made these tonight. Used panko instead of regular bread crumbs. Oh.My.Goodness.These.Are.So.Yummy. They were gone in minutes. Thanks 
” – Kitten
“Great recipe and I love the Thousand Island dressing recipe you included. This is also good with fried green tomatoes. They could be made according to this recipe too. Thanks!” – Fortuna
Oven Baked Onion Rings
Ingredients
- 1 large white or yellow onion - peeled, sliced, and separated into rings
- 2 egg whites
- 2 tablespoons milk
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 2 cups bread crumbs
- ⅓ cup flour
- salt + pepper - to taste
- cooking spray
Sauce
- ⅓ cup mayo
- ¼ cup ketchup
- 1 teaspoon Sriracha
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray heavily with cooking spray.
- In a bowl whisk together egg whites and milk. Place breadcrumbs in a second bowl. Add flour, salt and pepper to taste, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder in a large zip lock bag, seal and shake to mix seasonings.
- Open the bag and add the onion rings. Seal and shake to coat the rings well. Take onion rings out and one at a time, dip into egg-milk mixture making sure to coat all sides, then into the breadcrumbs, also coating all sides.
- Place rings in a single layer on prepared baking sheet. Spray heavily with cooking spray. Bake 20-25 minutes (depending on how crispy you want them).
- While onion rings are baking, prepare the dipping sauce. Mix together mayo, ketchup, and hot chili sauce. Chill until ready to serve.
Notes
Nutrition
If you like these Baked Onion Rings, you’ll love my Roasted Garlic Artichoke Bread, Slow Cooker Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs, Baked Avocado Fries, Pretzel-wrapped Hot Dogs, Grilled Sweet Potato “Fries”.
Is 450 degrees correct?? I made these last night as directed and they were only in the oven for 8 minutes when smoke started pooling out and filling up the entire house. I had to quickly evacuate my pet birds (who have very fragile lungs and cannot be around smoke) into the other room, take the batteries out of my smoke alarms, and open the windows and prop fans in them to get the smoke out. I live pretty far up north and it’s only in the single digits Fahrenheit, so the temperature in my house dropped to 35 Fahrenheit within a hour. I would of thought that I did something wrong, but I didn’t. What happened was the cooking spray I used (which I used a thick coat of as described, but not a copious amount of) got too hot and caused the smoke. I used PAM cooking spray. As far as the onion rings themselves, the ones that weren’t completely burnt, were really good. They only were in the oven for 8 minutes and the outside was crunchy and the onion in the middle was perfectly cooked which again makes me think the 450 degrees is a typo for 350 since there is no way they’d need to be in the oven for 20-25 minutes as written. The fry sauce however looks awesome. I didn’t make it but instead I made what Is called Campfire Sauce which is mayo and bbq sauce. I like using a spicy bbq sauce (like Devil’s Spit brand). I would consider making these again but setting the oven at 350 instead. Or just deep frying them as I’ve never had a problem with deep frying, it’s just more time consuming. But not as time consuming as your entire house filling up with smoke! Thanks for the recipe though, it taught me something.
Hi Aydenn. 450 is correct. Did you line the pan with parchment paper or wax paper? That can cause a lot of smoke. Also, some kinds of nonstick spray burn more easily than others. Lastly, if your pan has any built up grease or oil on it, that can cause the smoke. The idea though is to watch them and take them out when they are golden and starting to brown.
These were great!!! I’m not sure if you changed the instructions by now or not, but I wasn’t confused at all. I made them gluten and dairy free and they were amazing!!! I think I’ll omit the cayenne next time though lol, not because I didn’t like it, but my little siblings are weird with “spicy” things. I’ll make this again though for sure, they were WAY better than the fried onion rings I’ve tried to make
I don’t fry on the stove as we have an open flame gas cooktop. Open flame + oil? No way. I do have a deep electric frying pan with a domed lid though for fried chicken. There must be fried chicken. I’m going to try these on Mr Picky. If the baked don’t go over well, do you think frying would work with this recipe? (He’ll get them a lot more often if they’re baked!)
They might work with frying – I haven’t tried it though so I’m not positive how well the crumb layer will stay adhered to the onions when dropped in the oil! Good luck though with convincing Mr. Picky – he needs to get on board with baked-not-fried foods, they’re a staple in my house!! 🙂
I make a very similar version of I’ve fried rings. One day I pulsed some canned fried onions in my food processor (the ones you use in green bean casserole) and added them to my regular breadcrumbs (roughly half and half). Bliss. Try it for that extra kick of onion ringyness.
P.S. Will definitely be trying the fry sauce.
You should probably do a better job separating the directions. You have multiple instructions listed under the same instruction number.