Few things taste as delicious as crispy fried onions. When stored correctly, they have a long shelf life and are ideal for enhancing countless dishes. Not only do they add wonderful flavour, but also a crunchy texture.
There are many ready-made products available in shops, usually packaged in plastic. Anyone who reads the list of ingredients is likely to be in for a nasty surprise or two. What’s more, quite a few products have been transported over very long distances, if not halfway around the planet. None of this is necessary. You can easily make crispy fried onions yourself, and at a much lower cost. It takes a while, but very little effort.
We start with 400 g of yellow or white onions. From there, you can easily scale the ingredients to suit your needs.
Of course, you can cut the onions into rings or strips. However, small pieces are better suited for everyday use, for example, when we want to refine roasted vegetables. Therefore, we peel and halve the onions, then cut them lengthwise and then crosswise into cubes about ½ cm wide.
We add flour to these cubes (4 level tbsp), along with salt (1 tsp) and sweet paprika powder (2 tsp).
Mix everything thoroughly with your fingers. Some of the onion juice will be released, causing the flour to glue together, but this also makes it stick firmly to the onions.
Next, fry them slowly. In a large pan, you should cook this amount in two batches so that all the onions come into contact with the bottom of the pan.
We use clarified butter for flavour, but you can use neutral vegetable oil if you prefer. Fry the onions over medium-high heat ( we: 7 out of 10) for a good 10 minutes, turning them occasionally. After this time, they will be browned all over, but by no means crispy. And of course, not all pieces will be roasted to exactly the same degree.
So we spread the fried onions out on baking paper, which we place on the oven rack. Once the second batch of onions has been fried, we dry them all together at 100 °C – important: with fan circulation – on the middle rack of the oven. This takes two hours, during which time you can leave the oven door slightly ajar by wedging a wooden spoon in, for example.
The fried onions are done when they are all dry and crispy. This is very important for storing them, as onions that are still moist will spoil quickly. If they are not done yet, simply leave them in the oven a little longer.
400 g of onions and other ingredients make for 135 g of crispy fried onions. However, they have an incredibly concentrated flavour and are as crunchy as potato crisps.
It is essential to store your fried onions in a sealed container protected from light, then they will keep for at least 4 months and even longer. We use large screw-top jars made of brown glass for this, as we do for flour, grains and seeds.
Ingredients (for 135 g crispy fried onions):
400 g yellow or white onions
4 level tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sweet paprika powder
2 x 2 tbsp clarified butter (alternatively: neutral vegetable oil)
