Air Fryer Onion Rings

Ingredients 

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp salt, divided

½ cup buttermilk

1 egg

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 large yellow sweet onion, sliced ½ -inch thick and separated into rings

Oil Spray, optional

How to Prepare

Step 1: 

Prepare 4 different shallow deep plates. In the first plate, combine the flour, paprika, and ½ tsp salt together and set aside. In the second plate, combine buttermilk or milk and vinegar/lemon juice, and egg, with a ¼ cup of the flour mixture from the first bowl, then set aside.

Step 2:

In the third bowl, add together panko breadcrumbs, ½ tsp salt and olive oil and mix with a fork, until the oil is well distributed. Then put half of the panko in a fourth bowl in a way that you can switch to the second bowl after the first gets sticky.

Step 3:

With a paper towel, dry the onion rings to remove excess moisture from the onion rings. Dredge the onion rings in the flour mixture with a fork, and drop them in the buttermilk mixture and then dredge them in the panko mixture.

Step 4:

With an oil spray, spray the fryer basket and place onion rings in a single layer in the Air Fryer basket. If you have more smaller rings, you can place smaller rings inside bigger rings but with space between them.

Step 5:

Allow the onion ring to cook at 400°F for about 11-15 minutes or until it is golden brown and crispy. Then spray with some cooking spray after about 6 minutes, you do not need to flip the onion rings.

Step 6:

Lift the onion rings with a cookie spatula or fork carefully and serve.

Tips and variations

You can use sweet onions for this recipe to give it that sweet taste. For breading, you might not be able to use white and yellow onions because they don’t work well.

To allow the panko mixture to stick better, you can freeze the breaded onion rings for 15 minutes on a baking sheet.

You can use normal bread crumbs if you do not have panko bread crumbs available, but it might be as crispy if you use panko breadcrumbs.

When coating, you should use a fork, instead of hands to coat the onion rings.