Baked Onion Rings?

I've been contemplating baked onion rings for a long time.  Way back when I started on Weight Watchers there were always recipes for baked onion rings passed around.  I've seen them all over Pinterest too.  But really?  A baked onion ring?  That just sounds wrong!

This past weekend I asked Dave what he wanted for dinner.  He wanted burgers.  We had onions.  So I decided let's try this baked onion ring thing and see if it is any good at all.

The recipe I used is from Closet Cooking, a blogger I follow.  He posted this recipe on Pinterest.  Crispy Baked Onion Rings

It's very simple, if not a little putzy and messy.  Slice your onions.

Next they are dredged in flour, dipped in a batter of some liquid (milk or buttermilk, I used beer!), an egg and flour, then dredged in panko.  I found the best way to get the panko to stick was to put the ring in and shake the container around.  If I tried to use my hands the panko got too wet, then clumped, then wouldn't stick to the ring at all.

The onion rings go on a rack on a cookie sheet.  I don't have any racks that one, fit my sheet pans, and two can go in the oven.  They all have rubber on them somewhere.  So I used a broiler pan.  It worked just fine.

Bake these beauties for about 15 minutes at 375 degrees and you have onion rings.

How do they taste?  Well, I was shocked.  They were very good!  Were they Zazu rings, no, but nothing beats a Zazu ring.  They were very good and you could taste the beer!  I will make these again.  I may make Dave help because they are a bit labor intensive but they are worth it when you're craving onion rings and either don't want all the fat and calories or, like me don't need the fat and calories and don't own a deep fryer!