Beer Battered Onion Rings

What better food to help kick off the Spring and Summer eating season than Beer Battered Onion Rings that pairs well with any BBQ'd food. These are good with ribs, chicken, burgers, or just about anything from the grill. This is my own homemade batter which is so versatile, you can make just about any kind of rings to go with any dinner. Here is just my favorite original onion ring batter and how it all comes together.

The best onion rings come from Walla Walla sweets which are not usually in season until sometime later this summer. So for now I used a Texas sweet onion and it worked very well. I got a really good deal on a 3 lb bag of Texas sweet onions so I thought I would kick off our grilling season with some onion rings. I think 3 lbs for 99 cents on sale was a good deal.

The dipping sauce is my version of fry sauce that comes from one of my most favorite restaurants as a kid growing up in Spokane WA called Zip's. It is just a combination of mayonnaise, ketchup, and paprika. Wonderful on onion rings or fries; they call it their Fry Sauce and it is one of the most tasty dipping sauces I have ever had. We love it! With the onion rings, you can also use any sauce for dipping such as honey mustard, BBQ, ranch (that is what my 4 yr old eats on everything), spicy mustard, or whatever catches your fancy.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

2 cups flour
1 bottle beer (your favorite flavor, I used Bud for this one)
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp chili powder (for just a little zing)
4-6 sweet onions
Vegetable oil

You want to make the batter at least 6 hours ahead of time and let it sit at room temperature. Mix all ingredients until batter is no longer lumpy, cover and let sit at room temperature. I make mine the same morning as my meal. Thin with a little water or more beer if batter is too thick at cooking time, but not too thin or the batter won't adhere to the onions.



Slice up your onions and place in a large bowl of cold water, and refrigerate until ready to coat and fry. I usually slice up my onions right after I make my batter. The water helps the thin film come off the onion slices, which can make your onion rings very stringy and sort of slimy with that film intact.



Heat up your oil in a large frying pan on medium-high heat; or prepare deep fryer. Fry about 2 mins each side or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels (see tip below), keep in 180 degree oven to stay warm and crunchy.




Serve with favorite dipping sauce.

Tips:
- when I drain my onion rings, I use a wire rack so the rings do not sit directly on the paper towels, the oil drips down onto the paper towels and then I just convert them to another dish to keep warm in the oven, it really cuts down on the oil factor so you just taste onion and batter and not the oil.