Easy Air Fryer Onion Rings Recipe

This Easy Air Fryer Onion Rings recipe is the perfect way to enjoy a crispy, crunchy snack without all the oil. With just a few simple ingredients, you can make homemade onion rings in the air fryer that are golden, delicious, and healthier than deep-fried versions. Air frying onion rings gives you that perfect texture with less mess and fewer calories. Wondering how to make onion rings at home the easy way? If you're looking for healthy air fryer recipes and love a good homemade snack, you're in the right place — keep reading!

Jump to Recipe

The best air fryer onion ring recipe

"I can imagine the crunch" is a quote my previous Instagram post got. That's just what you hear when you bite into this onion ring. And it only takes 16 minutes to make. Some days you don't want to cook and if you really just want an appetizer, maybe you should just crunch on these air fryer breaded onion rings. No more regular onion rings, no more frozen onion rings, let's make some air fryer onion rings.

How to make air fryer onion rings

Buttermilk works best for this recipe because I find that the flour mixture just coats the buttermilk so well. I also use buttermilk to fry my chicken because it's the perfect item to make your chicken perfectly crunchy.  Along with the buttermilk I used an egg so it's makes an egg mixture/buttermilk blend. It's like an egg wash. In the flour mixture you could also add garlic powder, chili powder, or cayenne pepper, which a lot of food creators do, but sometimes I don't want to add it. I just used a little bit of paprika. I would also suggest panko breadcrumbs since they crisp up well. Who doesn't enjoy panko bread crumbs? The key is to get these coated onion rings covered so they can cook properly. If you don't have panko, you can also use regular breadcrumbs.

Sweet Onions

I like using sweet onions the best but I have used red onions before. Some people even like using yellow onions. Sweet onions are just my preference so you can pick any type you want.  If you want to get crazy you can try tofu. Using a cookie cutter you can cut the tofu into a circle and make tofu "onion rings". That would be fun. My onion slices are medium-sized or thick slices because that's my preference. You can cut your onions into any size you want. 

Why use the air fryer?

Simple, air frying is an easy way to cut back on the frying. No oil no issue. You can make an appetizer that's viewed as greasy and unhealthy.. Healthy! Skip the deep frying and pick another way to cook this recipe. The air fryer makes these the crispiest onion rings ever. I used cooking spray in the air fryer to make sure the onion rings don't stick to the air fryer basket. Place the onion rings in a single layer and get them cooking. Cook time for this recipe is 6 minutes. I would keep an eye on them throughout the whole 6 minutes to make sure they don't burn. In 6 minutes you will have the perfect side dish. The cooking time is short so you don't have to wait long for something delicious. 

What's your favorite dipping sauce? Get that ready for you to dip these crispy air fryer onion rings into. The crispy texture coats the dipping sauce so well. These onion rings will be on repeat in your house.  Golden brown, crispy onion rings ready in 6 minutes! 

Would you try this recipe? Keep reading to see how I made this and let me know what you think by leaving a comment and rating the recipe.