One of my favorite holiday dishes as a kid was green bean casserole. I loved sneaking some of the french fried onions straight from the can. It’s been years since I’ve had them since they are not gluten-free. I don’t know if they’re vegan but I do know they have a lot of fat and aren’t the healthiest way to eat an onion.
With holiday meals right around the corner, I was missing these tasty little morsels, so I decided to play in the kitchen and see if I could come up with something similar. It worked! I used a purple onion because I like their flavor better than yellow. The batter is very mild and could easily be spiced up. Since I was going for the mild flavor of the casserole onions and didn’t want them to overpower the dish, these are pretty close to the classic favorite.
Crispy Not-Fried Onion Rings
1 purple onion sliced into 1/4″ rings
1 tbs buckwheat flour
1 tbs potato flour
1 tbs rice flour
1 tbs tahini
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 1/2 cups water
Mix flours, tahini, salt pepper and water thoroughly to make batter. It should be about the same consistency as pancake batter. Dip onion slices into batter and coat. Remove from batter with a fork and let the excess batter drip back into the mixing bowl. Place coated onion ring on parchment paper or dehydrator sheets. Repeat until all you slices are coated and ready to dehydrate. Dry onion rings until crispy. Mine took about 32 hours and I started at 100 degrees for 18 hours, but they still a little chewy so I turned the dehydrator up to about 150 for a couple hours and then down to 125 degrees for another 12 hours and they were ready. You could also try baking in the oven. The key is to make sure they are completely dry and crispy before serving, so experiment with your baking equipment and enjoy!
