Oven Fried Onion Rings...Low Carb

It is an overcast, dark and dreary Saturday afternoon here with occasional sprinkles coming down, although it looks like the sky could open up at any moment.  It's a great day to play around in the kitchen.  This afternoon I decided to experiment a bit.  I wanted to see if an "almond flour coated" onion ring would work.  So I did a "test batch", making only 1 dozen onions rings.  That way, if it wasn't any good at all...I wouldn't be throwing away a lot of ingredients as well as wasting a lot of my time.  I know that onion rings are typically deep fried...but I don't particularly care with all the mess that goes with that...so I thought I'd see how they would turn out in the oven -- and of course I wanted them to be wheat/grain free.

I started working on this because I am already thinking about some of my Thanksgiving recipes and wondering how I can revisit and revise some of them.  I was thinking this afternoon about my green bean casserole and trying to find a better substitution for the "fried onion" topping from a can that goes on them.  I'm also working on the "sauce" part too...but that will be another day's project.  So, these onion rings turned out surprisingly good -- not super crunchy like deep fried ones would be, but light and crispy and delicious.  Hubby, who is normally an onion ring snob, (unless they are from The Varsity) even liked them!  Below are a few pics as well as my "test batch" recipe if you decide you might also want to try them on a smaller scale first -- that way if you like it, you could multiply the ingredients or you could decide how you might want to adjust them to your own taste (add extra seasonings, etc.).  Enjoy!

Oven Baked Onion Rings

INGREDIENTS:

1 medium to large sweet onion, sliced into 1/4" rings
1 or 2 eggs (I used 1/2 cup Egg Beaters)
3-4 Tablespoons half-n-half
1/2 cup (slightly heaped) almond flour
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika (or enough to give color to the almond flour coating)
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Olive oil

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with foil (I used Reynold's non-stick foil) and brush lightly with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil (no need to use your good Extra Virgin olive oil; I used my light "non-virgin" olive oil for this).  In a small bowl, beat egg and half and half together; season with salt and pepper to taste; add onion rings to the egg mixture, toss and let sit to soak while you make the coating/breading.

In a shallow bowl or plate, mix almond flour, salt and pepper to taste, onion powder, paprika and mix well with a whisk to remove any lumps. 

Take onion rings out, one or two at a time and place in the flour mixture, pressing and turning over with a fork until well coated on both sides.  Place on lightly oiled foil covered baking sheet in a single layer, not touching each other.  Place in oven and bake 7-8 minutes; flip and continue baking another 7-8 minutes or until golden brown and done.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with salt, if desired.

Here they are baking away -- if you wanted them to be more "fried like", you could easily add more oil to the pan -- I only brushed about 1 tablespoon on.

Check out the hundreds of FREE eBooks:  Free Grain-Free eBooks