Outback Steakhouse Bloomin' Onion

RESTAURANT: Outback Steakhouse
LOCATION: Tucson, AZ
SIZE: One size
NUMBER AND SIZE OF RINGS: One big blossom
COST:$5.95
The Bloomin' onion is nothing new in the onion ring world and many restaurants call them by their own different names. I do think Outback has been rather cocky with theirs. I mean, look at this ugly thing. It's overdone, almost too peppery; it has many petals uncoated, and the coating is uneven and floury. But boy is it yummy with their spicy sauce, regardless. One thing about blooming onions is that you pull the petals off and are essentially eating half of the onion petal without breading every time. Then you are so tempted to eat the greasy floury mess left at the bottom. I suggest eating one of these with four people- that way you all get your fill without eating yourselves sick. I also think they cost less if you go eat one before 6PM on their early menu, which is weird because they are only open for dinner, so you only have a small window of opportunity.

Burger King

RESTAURANT: Burger King
LOCATION: Casa Grande, AZ
SIZE: Value menu
NUMBER AND SIZE OF RINGS: 10 - one inch and a half- all the same size
COST:$1.00
The lowest end of the low end fast food onion rings. These are made with diced onions and have very little taste. I would like to call them "placebo onion rings." This is probably why they give out the ZESTY sauce- filled with horseradish and high fructose corn syrup to dip them in- so they have some flavor. But for a buck, who cares! They have also started putting tiny canned-type onion rings on some of their steakhouse burgers, but, although they are salty and crispy, they use so few that it doesn't make a difference in how the burger tastes at all. These onion ring laden burgers are not worth what they cost, for sure.

Carls Jr

RESTAURANT: Carls Jr
LOCATION: Blythe, CA
SIZE: Small
NUMBER AND SIZE OF RINGS: 9 rings, 2-3 inches
COST:$2.30
Carls Jr is famous for sticking a big onion ring on some of their burgers, so they must be pretty awesome. They have a slightly different texture than other fast food onion rings- it's a smooth sort of bumpy- more like a paved and sealed road than a gravel one. Kind of like a pebbled stream bed, but an onion ring coating instead of rocks.

Dairy Queen

RESTAURANT: Dairy Queen
LOCATION: Gila Bend, AZ
SIZE: One size
NUMBER AND SIZE OF RINGS: 8 rings, 2-3 inches
COST:$1.89
These are just what you want out in the middle of nowhere on your road trip! They have that taste of grease that has had a thousand things fried in it. They are sweet with a breadcrumb coating. But, click on the image and check out the grease! These were just floating in a pool of grease. But they tasted mighty fine regardless.

Jenks Restaurant

RESTAURANT: Jenks Restaurant and Amazing Clocks
LOCATION: Main Street, Jenks, OK
SIZE: Appetizer order
NUMBER AND SIZE OF RINGS: plateful
COST:around $3?
These are what I call the typical "beer battered" onion rings. I've had the same ones at many places. They are sweet, crunchy. . . normal. This restaurant is fun because our three year old likes looking at the moving faces of the clocks. They play songs and go off at intervals throughout. Also, antique shoppers sometimes browse through the store.

Oklahoma Hamburger Company/ Reggies Grill, Jenks, OK

RESTAURANT: Oklahoma Hamburger Company/ Reggie's Grill (not sure what the real name is)
LOCATION: Main Street, Jenks, OK
SIZE: Full order
NUMBER AND SIZE OF RINGS: enough to fill an entire plate heaping tall
COST:$2.70 after tax
These babies are something special. Very thin cut, they have a good amount of black pepper in them. As peppery as they can be without being too peppery. The onions they use are really sweet, so with the peppery floury coating, they have a nice full flavor. Really worth trying in the onion ring world! And what a total steal for the price- I would have expected to pay at least 4 bucks for these elsewhere. Maybe we shouldn't tell anyone and keep this to ourselves!

Thanksgiving IS a time for Onion Rings!

Thanks to the wonderous GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE, Onion Rings have a place at the Thanksgiving table. I would like to make just plain onion rings a Thanksgiving tradition at my house.

Ollie's Station Restaurant, Red Fork, OK

RESTAURANT: Ollie's Station
LOCATION: Route 66, Red Fork, OK
SIZE: Side
NUMBER AND SIZE OF RINGS: 8, 2-5 inches-- HUGE!
COST: As a side dish selection with many meals
Big, thick traditional onion rings. Coating appears to be crispy panko/ bread crumbs. This restaurant has an awesome menu with tons of fried specialties. Try the fried sweet potatoes, okra, green tomatoes too.

Sonic

RESTAURANT: Sonic
LOCATION: Tulsa, OK and all over the US
SIZE: Regular
NUMBER AND SIZE OF RINGS: 6, averaging 3 inches in diameter
COST: $1.69 plus tax
I even got 7 ketchup packets, even though I only used 3.

Sonic must be pretty proud of their onion rings- they have a HUGE neon sign on their drive-ins to advertise them. In many "best of" ratings sites, people have actually voted Sonic as their favorite place for onion rings in several locales.
They are pretty darn good. From the moment they enter your car, it smells like the midway at the state fair. Aside from the most intoxicating onion ring smell around, they have a unique taste and texture. One of the few homemade type looks mixed with a mass-produced type of breadcrumb texture. And the sugar, LOTS and LOTS of sugar is put into the batter of these babies. I would be as bold to say that perhaps even high fructose corn syrup-- anyone reading who works for sonic is free to challenge this assumption. But feel free to look at the nutrition information for these babies on their website. DIABETICS BEWARE. I couldn't have more than 10 grams of sugar in any meal (the regular size has 14 grams) when I was pregnant and had gestational diabetes, and could only eat an onion ring or two!

Buttermilk Onion Rings- title recipe

I made the onion rings that you see pictured on the header during a severe onion ring craving a couple of weeks ago. I was so in love with them that I took a picture!
They are very simple to make and from my favorite recipe!
The recipe comes from Sara Moulton, our food network friend.
Buttermilk Onion Rings

Ingredients

• 4 large onions
• 1 quart buttermilk
• 2 cups flour
• Salt
• Pepper
• Chili powder
• Oil for frying

Directions

Slice 4 large onions into 1/4-inch rings. Place in large bowl and cover with buttermilk. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Place 2 cups flour in a shallow dish. Season with salt and pepper. Dredge onion rings in seasoned flour. Dip again in buttermilk, then in seasoned four.

Fry in batches, in 350 degree oil for 2 to 3 minutes until golden.

Drain on paper towels. Let oil come back to temperature before frying next batch.

Onion rings of my childhood

When I was a small child, my mom would make onion rings every Sunday. During church, I would sit there thinking of the onion rings I would get to eat as soon as we got home. There are SIX kids in my family, so yes, we would occasionally fight over the onion rings. I remember these onion rings often being of the "onion ringer" variety, which was the least expensive. Onion ringers are the type where the inside onions are all ground up. So, they are kind of "fake" onion rings. But we loved them, nonetheless. My sister had an interesting technique for savoring her onion rings. She would break them into small pieces, so we really couldn't tell how many she had actually hoarded. Then, she would wait until we were all done with our onion rings and savor them in front of us. Brilliantly Cruel.
The store nearest our house didn't carry "real" packaged onion rings, so we would only get packaged with whole onions in them if my mom ventured out to other stores that were having sales.
Occasionally, my mom would make homemade onion rings. We would eat ourselves sick. We experimented for what seemed like years to make the perfect homemade onion ring. We even went through a "beer batter" stage, which was pretty hardcore, considering that we are LDS and don't drink! We would sit and conjecture what she would do if someone from church saw her buying beer at the store. That didn't last long, as we realized the beer-battered ones weren't quite as good as some of the other recipes.