Onion Strings

As I was thinking of what to make for dinner last night, I thought about a big, juicy hamburger from Red Robin (yummm). But, because my husband is vegetarian, I decided to be anti-meat and make black bean burgers instead. I love these burgers but sometimes I wish I had a restaurant-style one instead of just the plain burger with American cheese on the bun and a couple condiments. So I thought, why not try something new and throw on some onion strings? I love burgers that have these fried boogers on them and I wanted one so badly that I decided to start looking up how to make them. Even now, not even 10 AM and I want one of those leftover burgers with a few onion strings on them.

So I looked around and found a recipe for them from the Pioneer Woman who really has a lot of great looking recipes. I made them up, popped them onto my burgers and what a hit! My hubby loved them and so did I!

What You Need:

• 1 large onion
• 2 cups milk or buttermilk
• 2 cups flour
• 1 Tbsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. chili powder
• 1 qt. canola oil
• black pepper to taste

How to Do It:

First, slice the onion very thin. I cannot stress this enough. That onion has to be thinly sliced. Separate the onion into rings and submerge them in two cups of milk or buttermilk. I used regular milk because I didn't have buttermilk on hand and I didn't feel like taking the time to make it either. Let the onion sit in the milk for an hour at least. While that's happening, mix up the breading mixture. Add two cups flour to a bowl.

Next, throw in the one tablespoon of salt.

Add in the black pepper (I didn't use much, maybe 1/2 teaspoon) and chili powder (the Pioneer Woman used cayenne pepper but I found chili powder works just as well).

Mix it all up and let cover it until you're ready to bread the onion. Once the onion has sit for an hour, remove a few at a time from the milk and plop into the flour mixture.

I used a tupperware container so I could just pop the lid on and shake up the mixture to make sure I covered the onions well with it.

Shake off the excess flour and make a healthy batch of strings to put into the hot oil.

Make sure your oil is good and hot, not burning, before adding the onions. Be careful when you add them too because they could pop up on you and burn you. You can see that my husband is wearing an oven mitt while he puts them into the hot oil.

Let them simmer in the hot oil until golden brown, this shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Just mix them up a little so they don't all stick together into a bunch.

When the onions look pretty and golden brown, remove them from the oil onto a paper towel-lined plate.

Serve over burgers, as a side to a nice steak, or just by themselves with some ranch dip!

Original recipe