Beer-battered onion rings are known for their quintessential light and airy texture and crunchy exterior, which pairs perfectly with a tender, caramelized veggie center. While beer in the batter contributes to the taste, the brew’s bubbles also serve an essential purpose of aerating the batter, which helps the coating puff (in addition to chemical leavening agents, such as baking powder) when it’s added to the fryer. However, if you’re avoiding beer and other alcoholic beverages, don’t worry, you’re not going to be limited to oven-baked onion rings. You can still fry flawless battered onion rings without the booze, using a fizzy alternative: carbonated water.
Without the introduction of carbonation, gluten can overdevelop, leaving batters sticky or gluey and lacking in crunch once cooked. While some recipes say to use sodas like ginger ale, ginger beer, or root beer to replace the beer in the batter, carbonated water is the best non-alcoholic bubbly liquid to use with onion rings due to its neutral taste. Sodas can vary greatly in flavor and sugar content, which could end up giving your fried alliums an undesirable or overpowering flavor or aftertaste. Sparkling water, on the other hand, just like when used to create fluffier baked goods, provides air pockets to the batter which contribute foaming and expansion when the batter is fried, while letting the subtle, earthy sensory elements of the onion sing.
How to substitute carbonated water in beer batter
Any carbonated water you have on hand — whether that’s seltzer, club soda, or sparkling water — will do the trick as a substitute in your favorite beer-battered onion ring recipe. Just make sure the fizzy liquid is unflavored. Since carbonation helps reduce wheat flour’s gluten formation in frying batter, when using sparking water as a non-alcoholic alternative, just make sure it’s ice cold and refrigerated to allow for the most bubble retention and incorporation. Once you add in your sparkling water to the batter, it’s also important not to over-mix. Just like with pancake batter, over-mixing frying batter can lead to excess gluten development and a tough, dense fried coating. So, to keep the bubbles intact, just whisk in cold sparkling water with the flour, seasonings, and baking powder until just combined and the batter appears bubbly.
The evaporation of alcohol in the heat of the fryer is known to contribute crispiness to beer-battered onion rings. However, with non-alcoholic batter, you can add in a few tablespoons of corn starch or rice flour instead to achieve some extra crunch. Finally, since the sugars in beer also help create a golden brown exterior, you can add a tablespoon or two of sugar to impart subtle caramelized notes and color development when using carbonated water. Of course, make sure to spice it up with seasonings like garlic powder, salt, and pepper to make the ultimate crowd-pleasing onion ring appetizer or snack.
