3-Ingredient Beer Battered Onion Rings

Name: 3-Ingredient Beer Battered Onion Rings Recipe
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 10 min
Ingredients: 1 small sweet onion; 1 cup Krusteaz buttermilk pancake mix; ⅔ cup beer; Vegetable oil (for frying)

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You can make our 3-ingredient beer battered onion rings in 10 minutes for a quick and easy game day snack! Or serve them alongside our stuffed cheese burger or Vermont burger for the perfect burger night!

A pile of onion rings made with a pancake mix beer batter on a wooden serving tray.

Picture this: it’s 8pm, you just turned on the football game, and your stomach starts rumbling. If you’re anything like us, you’re probably craving something crispy and fried to pair with the beer you’ve already opened. So what do you do? You make these 10-minute, 3-ingredient beer battered onion rings and happily snack on them all night long.

You might be thinking, how can I possibly make beer battered onion rings in 10 minutes?? It’s not as crazy as it sounds – all you need is boxed pancake mix, beer, and an onion.

What To Expect

Great for: An easy restaurant-style side dish or a snackable game day appetizer.
Ready in: 10 minutes
Serves: 30 onion rings, perfect for about 4 people as a side.
Flavor profile: Sweet and savory, with a hint of beer.
How to make it: Cut the onion into rings, dredge in the batter, and fry.

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Why We Love This Recipe

Making onion rings from scratch is both quicker and more delicious than any frozen onion rings can ever be. These are, without a doubt, my favorite onion rings.
– Alex

Beer Battered Onion Rings Ingredients

Ingredients for making beer battered onion rings: sweet onion, beer, and Krusteaz boxed pancake mix.

Pancake mix – You need a pancake mix that only requires water to make. Krusteaz buttermilk pancake mix is our go-to.
Beer – Use your favorite common beer! You’ll be able to taste the beer, but this isn’t a recipe worth using a specialty local brew for (save those for drinking!). We tend to have Sam Adams or Blue Moon around for this sort of recipe.
Sweet onion – Sweet onions are best for onion rings thanks to their mild and sweet flavor.

Serving Suggestions

Homemade beer battered onion rings are the perfect game day appetizer for parties, cookouts, and burger nights! You can serve them as an appetizer, snack, or side dish for any occasion – because who doesn’t love onion rings?

Pair them with your favorite dips, like ketchup, homemade chipotle mayo, ranch, or BBQ sauce.
Serve them as a side with one of our out of the box burger recipes.
Enjoy them as a topping on our Guinness burger.
Add them to a french fry grazing board with your favorite fries and tots.

How To Make Crispy Beer Battered Onion Rings At Home

Make your rings – Slice a sweet onion into half-inch thick rings and separate.
Make your dredge and heat the oil – Whisk together the dry pancake mix and beer in a bowl that’s big enough to dip the onion rings into. In the meantime, heat about three-quarters of an inch to an inch of vegetable oil in a deep cast iron frying pan over medium to medium-high heat.
Coat the onion rings – Coat the onion rings in the batter and transfer them carefully to the pan. You don’t need a ton of batter on each onion ring, as it will puff up while frying – let any excess batter gently drip off before the rings go in the pan! Work in batches so as not to overcrowd the pan.
Fry – Let the onion rings cook for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. They should be turning brown and getting puffy. Then, gently flip the onion rings over and cook until the other side is a deep golden brown, about 15 to 30 seconds more.
Drain and cool – Transfer the onion rings to a plate lined with paper towels to drain, and let cool for a couple minutes before serving.

Expert Tips

Work in small batches – Cooking and coating 3 to 5 onion rings at a time (depending on the sizes) helps to not overcrowd the pan and makes sure you don’t feel rushed. The onion rings cook quickly.
Prep your workstation before you start cooking – Set up an assembly line of raw onion and batter next to your stove, then make sure you have a paper towel lined plate ready for the cooked onion rings. Also make sure you have all the necessary utensils within reach. This will make the process much easier.
Be patient – Let the first side of the onion rings cook before flipping. If you flip the onion rings too early, the batter can break and fall off the onion.
If your onion rings are cooking too fast – Lower the heat and allow the oil a couple minutes to cool before starting the next batch. The onions need time to soften. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a crispy coating and raw onion inside.

A serving board piled with homemade beer battered onion rings served with a side of ranch.

Beer Battered Onion Rings FAQs

The easiest method we’ve found to help the batter stick to the onion rings while frying is to gently agitate the oil at the start of cooking and avoid flipping the onion rings too soon. As they fry, the onion rings will float at the top of the oil, so the very top surface will be exposed to air. But if you gently agitate the oil around the onion rings, the extra heat should help solidify the outside surface of the batter all the way around – even on top where the onion rings aren’t actually submerged in oil. Once the outside layer of batter is solidified, then you can carefully flip the onion rings without worrying about losing batter.

We also recommend using a fork to gently flip the onion rings. Other utensils that require you to squeeze or pick up the onion rings, like metal tongs, will break the outer layers of solidified batter and cause it to fall off.

This could be one of two things: the excess oil isn’t draining properly off the cooked onion rings, or you coated them in too much batter.

If you’re ending up with soggy onion rings after draining them on a paper towel lined plate, try draining them on a cooling rack positioned over paper towels instead. This should improve the airflow around the onion rings to help keep them crispy.

To avoid soggy onion rings due to excess batter, make sure to only coat them in a thin layer before frying. It’s better to have too little batter on the onion rings than too much (less is more, in this case!). Since our beer batter puffs up while the onion rings fry, you’ll have plenty of crispy goodness to crunch into, even if it doesn’t seem that way while you’re coating them.

We find the best onion to use for homemade onion rings is a sweet onion. The local sweet onions for us are Vidalias so that is what we use. But Walla Walla or Maui onions will also work well.

Beer battered onion rings are the best kind of onion rings in our opinion. The crispy-yet-fluffy coating and savory flavor makes for a better complement to the sweet and crunchy onion than a traditionally breaded onion ring.

Related Game Day Recipes

Love this recipe? You’ll also wanna check out these easy recipes for football Sunday:

4 Layer Mexican Dip

Easy Mexican Street Corn Dip (Crockpot Recipe)

Beer Cheese Nachos

Vegetarian Black Bean Southwest Sliders

Tell us what you think!

We hope you enjoy our simple 3-ingredient onion rings recipe! When you try it out, please leave a review and a star rating in the comments below, we know you’ll love it. Happy cooking! – Nicole and Alex

3-Ingredient Beer Battered Onion Rings Recipe

Nicole & Alex Langdon

You can make our 3-ingredient beer battered onion rings in 10 minutes for a quick and easy game day snack! Or serve them alongside your favorite burger.

5 from 2 votes

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Prep Time 5

Cook Time 5

Total Time 10

Course Appetizer, Side Dish, Snack

Cuisine American

Servings onion rings

Calories 47 kcal

Equipment

Cast iron pan

Ingredients

▢ 1 small sweet onion
▢ 1 cup Krusteaz buttermilk pancake mix
▢ ⅔ cup beer
▢ Vegetable oil for frying

Instructions

First, peel the onion, slice into half-inch thick rings, and separate.
Next, whisk pancake mix and beer together in a small bowl until well-combined. In the meantime, heat about three-quarters inch to an inch of vegetable oil in a deep cast iron frying pan over medium-high heat.
Once the oil is very hot, start working in batches of 3 to 5 onion rings. One by one, coat the onion rings in a thin layer of batter, letting the excess drip off before it goes in the pan. Once the pan is full (make sure not to overcrowd it), gently agitate the oil with a fork to help the batter solidify all around the onion rings. After about 30 seconds to 1 minute, once the bottoms of the onion rings are slightly golden, flip them gently with a fork. Continue frying for another 15 to 30 seconds or so, until the onion rings are a deep golden-brown all the way around.
Transfer the cooked onion rings to a plate lined with paper towels to drain the excess oil. Continue working in batches until all the onion rings are fried. Let cool at least 5 minutes before serving.

One last step:Please consider to let us know how it was!

Notes

What kind of beer to use: The beer flavor comes through in these onion rings, so choose a beer you love! You can use a light lager for a more traditional onion ring, or a darker option like Guinness for a sweeter, more flavorful onion ring.

Tips for frying onion rings: Carefully agitating the oil helps the top layer of batter solidify on the onion rings so that it doesn’t come off when you flip them. Since the onion rings will float in the oil, the tops won’t be submerged in oil right away, so this step really helps!

Work in small batches – Cooking and coating 3 to 5 onion rings at a time (depending on the sizes) helps to not overcrowd the pan and makes sure you don’t feel rushed. The onion rings cook quickly.

Prep your workstation before you start cooking – Set up an assembly line of raw onion and batter next to your stove, then make sure you have a paper towel lined plate ready for the cooked onion rings. Also make sure you have all the necessary utensils within reach. This will make the process much easier.

Be patient – Let the first side of the onion rings cook before flipping. If you flip the onion rings too early, the batter can break and fall off the onion.

If your onion rings are cooking too fast – Lower the heat and allow the oil a couple minutes to cool before starting the next batch. The onions need time to soften. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a crispy coating and raw onion inside.

Nutrition

Serving: 1onion ringCalories: 47kcalCarbohydrates: 2gProtein: 0.5gFat: 4gSaturated Fat: 1gPolyunsaturated Fat: 2gMonounsaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0.02gCholesterol: 3mgSodium: 23mgPotassium: 23mgFiber: 0.2gSugar: 1gVitamin A: 11IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 12mgIron: 0.1mg

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5 from 2 votes (1 rating without comment)

One Comment

Alex says:

February 8, 2025 at 4:00 PM

I’ve always been disappointed with frozen onion rings, so being able to make them at home and have them taste like restaurant onion rings is a huge win. I love making these whenever I’m craving classic pub food.