If You Love Onion Rings, Here’s the Best Frozen Brand to Try

Crispy, dippable, and technically a vegetable: onion rings are one of my favorite foods. So, I set out to find the best brand of frozen onion rings. Whenever I go out for drinks with friends or loved ones, onion rings are a must-order. I think of onion rings as the French fries for special occasions, and going out with good company is definitely a special occasion.

Now, if you’re wondering, like I did, where onion rings come from, I admit the history of my favorite appetizer is a bit murky. It seems many nations want to boast about discovering this tasty treat first. And who can blame them? The act of taking sliced onions, battering them in flour, cream, and seasonings, and then frying them until golden seems simple, but it’s also delicious. Add a bit of ketchup, ranch dressing, or maybe a fancy sauce from a trendy restaurant, and you’ve got a crispy, crumbly, addictive delight.

But, as much as I love onion rings lately, I started to wonder why I only eat them when I’m at a bar or restaurant. If I consider onion rings an alternative to French fries (and I’ve been cooking and enjoying frozen French fries at home for decades), couldn’t I do the same with onion rings? Is it possible to find a convenient, oven-ready onion ring with restaurant-quality?

So, I set out to find the best brand of frozen onion rings. For fun, I took my favorite happy hour companion, my mom, to try all the types of onion rings I could find at my local grocery store. It was a fun and tasty experience that ended up being a special occasion in itself. Here are the five onion rings my mom and I tried, ranked from worst to best.

Happy Belly Onion Rings

Amazon’s Happy Belly brand seems to make everything you could need or want in a grocery store. It offers coffee, nuts, cookies, and of course, onion rings.

However, the mega brand isn’t exactly known for its frozen onion snacks, and I wondered if this was for a good reason. When I tried to search for these rings on Happy Belly’s Amazon page, only the brand’s frozen chopped onions appeared. When I searched for Amazon’s “best sellers” in the “Frozen Potatoes & Onion Rings” category, they received a disappointing rating of 51 (out of 79). That’s all to say: I had low expectations for these panko-breaded onion rings.

The packaging is, like other Happy Belly products, simple and clean, though perhaps boring. I bought a 16-ounce bag of onion rings for $3.39.

The look:

With a pleasant texture and a light golden color, these rings are undeniably attractive. When I took them out of the oven, I thought they looked like they had been placed in front of me at a restaurant. However, when I transferred them from the pan to the plate, I was unpleasantly surprised to find the larger ones fallen and bent, telltale signs of a too-flimsy ring.

The taste:

The panko breading on the rings provides a good texture to the exterior, but as I suspected, these rings are simply too flimsy. They have minimal crunch, and when I bit into each ring, the onion quickly separated from the breading, often leaving me with too much onion in one bite and an empty crust shell for the next.

Still, my mom and I agreed that the onion and breading flavor was good and that the rings were certainly edible. Overall, they were okay… but were they the best onion rings we’ve tried? No way.

Market Pantry Crispy Onion Rings

Like Amazon’s Happy Belly brand, Target has its own grocery brand: Market Pantry. While the brand has impressed me before, I was disheartened to discover that these onion rings had lackluster reviews on Target’s website, earning 4.2 out of 5 stars from just over 20 customers. Market Pantry is a big brand, and I felt disappointed by the lack of interest.

Still, I like the packaging. The brand’s signature red color is eye-catching, and the photo of the onion rings on the bag looks delicious and is prominently displayed on about half of the bag. This 16-ounce bag cost me $3.69.

The look:

These onion rings came out of the oven with restaurant-quality. They have a nice golden color and many notable crumbly breadings (usually, in my opinion, a good sign). I appreciated that, while the rings came in a variety of diameters, they all seemed substantial, each with a thick and healthy breading.

The taste:

When biting into these rings, I thought the breading had a great amount of crunch, a good amount of crumble, and a good flavor. However, the exterior was quite thick, and my mom and I decided it was simply too much.

We agreed that the thick exterior left these rings with an unsatisfactory lack of onion flavor, and my mom even joked that some rings must have forgotten their onions at the factory. And while I didn’t think they completely lacked onion flavor, I agreed that the breading overpowered the too-thin vegetable hidden inside.

Alexia Crispy Onion Rings

Alexia is known for being a more health-conscious frozen vegetable brand that boasts organic and non-GMO ingredients. So, while these onion rings aren’t organic, they are non-GMO.

With a green stripe in the middle, I thought this packaging looked bright and fresh. The bag boasts that the rings inside have sea salt and, like the Happy Belly brand rings, have panko breading.

This bag contained the smallest volume of all on this list, with only 11 oz of rings. It was also the most expensive, costing $5.89.

The look:

These onion rings are relatively thin, so they cook quickly. In fact, I took them out of the oven at the recommended time, but I wondered if I should have grabbed them earlier, as they came out a bit darker than I expected.

Still, when I put them on a plate, I thought they looked good. The breading had a nice crumbly texture, and the rings were firm, not flimsy, to the touch.

The taste:

I enjoy a good crispy onion ring, so these crispy rings were especially satisfying for me. I got a distinctive crunch in every bite, and I liked how these rings held up even when dipped in ranch (my favorite onion ring accompaniment).

As for the flavor, my mom put it best when she lamented, “They’re really good… but not phenomenal.” We liked the seasoning of the breading, but we both noticed a slight aftertaste.

Still, they were good, and with such a good and abundant crunch, Alexia earned a spot in my top three.

McCain Craft Beer Battered Onion Rings

McCain offers a wide variety of fries and potato products, and this beer-battered product stands out as the company’s only onion ring.

While I had never had a McCain product before, I was excited to try these rings because I found the packaging quite eye-catching. The bag features a fryer basket full of onion rings against blurred lights, suggesting these onions have just been delivered to a bar table. I liked the look and the suggestion of “restaurant quality.”

These stand out as the only beer-battered rings on this list, made with “American Pale Ale crafted beer.” With 14 ounces, this bag was smaller than some of the others on this list and cost me $4.99.

The look:

Right out of the oven, I noticed a difference between these and the other onion rings my mom and I tried. These beer-battered rings had the lightest color of all the rings we tried: although they looked well-cooked, they came out with a light blonde hue.

Otherwise, these looked like you would expect onion rings to look. They were neither too thick nor too thin, and overall, they looked appetizing.

The taste:

After the first bites, my mom and I agreed that the batter on this ring was delicious. It had good flavor and a good amount of crunchy texture without being too crunchy.

In fact, my mom said that McCain’s rings have the best breading of the five rings we tried. However, we were both a bit disappointed by the lack of onion flavor. Perhaps the onions were too thin, or maybe they just got too lost under the batter, but I wished I had gotten more onion out of this onion ring.

Nathan’s Famous Thick Sliced Battered Onion Rings

When you hear the name Nathan’s, you think of hot dogs, right? Me too. That’s why I was surprised to discover that this famous brand makes onion rings. In fact, it’s such a well-kept secret that the onion rings weren’t even listed among other edible products on the company’s website.

Still, I was excited to try them. The rings on the package, arranged in a yellow paper food boat, looked delicious. The 16-ounce bag cost me $6.69.

The look:

I was pleased to find that these onion rings looked just like they do in the package image. While other brands I tried had a lot of texture and crumbs, they were actually quite smooth, not much different from the McCain product.

The taste:

When I started trying these five brands of onion rings, I thought I was looking for the frozen onion rings that most resembled the rings from my favorite restaurants. I was looking for something crunchy, crispy, that tasted like it was fresh out of the fryer.

But this took me by surprise. They don’t taste like the rings I love when I go out for happy hour; they were softer, with a sweeter onion than I’m used to, but wow, they were delicious.

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SOURCE: If You Love Onion Rings, Here’s the Best Frozen Brand to Try