How to Make Smoked Bacon Wrapped Onion Rings
This recipe right here is why Twitter is so magical. One night I was messing around on it and I noticed that one of my twitter buddies Joe posted a photo of some smoked bacon wrapped onion rings. I have never even considered such a marvelous idea.
This immediately went to the top of my to-do list. Today I’m going to show you my take on this amazing appetizer. I added spicy sriracha hot sauce and make a spicy mayo dipping sauce.
I could only imagine how amazing these would be at a tailgate and it for sure rivals one of the best smoked appetizers ever – the smoked stuffed jalapeno pepper. Yeah, these are that good!
Quick note: This dipping sauce also doubles as an amazing sriracha mayo burger sauce! Check this out!
Ingredient List for Smoked Bacon Wrapped Onion Rings
- 1 lbs Bacon
- 3 Sweet Onions
- 2 tbsp Black Pepper
- ½ cup Sriracha Hot Sauce
- 2 tbsp Mayo
- 1 tsp Lime Juice
Simple Recipes can be the Best Recipes
One of the most beautiful things about this recipe is that it only has a few ingredients. I decided to be crazy and make a dipping sauce for it but to be honest these are so good you can easily eat them by themselves.
Bacon, sweet onions, pepper and sriracha hot sauce (or any other hot sauce you like) is really all you need.
Sweet onions are a must for this recipe. They are such tasty and mild onions. The first thing you do is cut the onion in half until you get roughly ½ inch tall rings.
Be careful doing this as you want to keep the onion completely together or else it will fall apart on the grill or smoker.
Cut up a bunch of them and then pop the middles out of the onion ring. You’ll want to leave about 2 “rings” of onion on each one.
This provides some stability but at the same time isn’t too hard to bite through.
I was thinking of ways to flavor the onion prior to wrapping it in bacon and I wanted to do something with hot sauce.
The problem is that most hot sauces are rather runny and I assumed these sauces would drip right off the onion and barely be noticeable.
Sriracha hot sauce, on the other hand, is thick so I knew it would stay on the onion the whole time. Brush that hot sauce on thick.
See how the sauce sticks right to the onion?
How to Wrap the Bacon Wrapped Onions
The next step is to take full slices of bacon and wrap them around the onion ring.
I found that for most onion rings I needed 3, yes THREE, slices of bacon to make it all the way around.
Once you are done use a long skewer or toothpick to keep things nice and tight. This also lets you grab them off the smoker with tongs without messing up the onion ring.
If you are using a charcoal grill you can do this via indirect heat and some smoke wood on top of the coals. Aim for 250-350 degrees F and grill the onions rings for about 90 minutes.
Today, I was using my Ugly Drum Smoker so I loaded the grate with bacon wrapped onion rings and let it go for about 90 minutes at about 280 degrees F. You’ll know they are done when the bacon looks nicely cooked. We all know what cooked bacon looks like!
The only catch here is that the longer these onion rings cook, the softer the internal onion will be. So gauge your temperature and time accordingly and don’t worry if they are taking longer than 90 minutes, just keep an eye on the bacon from overcooking.
In other words, don’t think that a quicker high heat will produce just as good of an onion ring.
The inside onion won’t be nearly as tender. I bet these onion rings can also work in a normal home oven, you just wouldn’t have the smoky flavor.
Time to Check On the Bacon Wrapped Onion Rings
Right at the 90 minute mark I opened up the smoker to check these guys out and they were perfectly done. It smelled amazing.
As I ran inside to get a plate I thought that I might be able to pull of a quick off-the-cuff sriracha mayo that could be a perfect dipping sauce.
I eye balled 2 tablespoons of mayo into a small bowl, 1 tablespoon of sriracha hot sauce and about 1 teaspoon of lime juice. Mix it all up and there you go. It’s that easy!
We met up with fellow blogger Frank from Culinary Lion to make his Cajun BBQ Sausage Bites. Between his sausage bites and my bbq onion rings we were the talk of the tailgate.
Checkout these other great Appetizer Ideas
- Chesapeake Garlic Parmesan Wings
- Bangin’ Buffalo Chicken Dip
- Bang Bang Shrimp Dip
- Brat Roll Tailgate Appetizer
Smoked Bacon Wrapped Onion Rings; Spicy Sriracha Onion Rings
Ingredients
- 1 lbs Bacon
- 3 Sweet Onions
- 2 tbsp Black Pepper
- ½ cup Sriracha Hot Sauce
- 2 tbsp Mayo
- 1 tsp Lime Juice
Instructions
- Cut onions into ½ inch thick rings and pop the internal rings out until you have a nice sturdy onion ring.
- Brush onion with hot sauce.
- Wrap each onion ring with bacon and secure with a skewer or toothpick.
- Heavily cover the onion rings with pepper and smoke, grill or bake for about 90 minutes at 250-350 degrees.
- To make the spicy sriracha mayo, combine 2 T of mayo, 1 T of sriracha sauce, and 1 tsp of lime juice. Mix well.
Anthony Keeligan
Instead of grilling my bacon wrapped onion rings for 90 minutes I microwave the onion on full for about 20-25 seconds let it cool then wrap it, grill for 25-30 minutes then enjoy.
Kathryn
Wow, I thought I saw it all until now. You had me at bacon but then Sriracha. My all-time fave sauce. Bravo!
Aiyeemah
Looks awesomely yummy! Can it be made in the oven? If yes, what temperature setting would I use?
paulette
could you make these ahead them freeze them and cook them later???
John
I’m not sure about that one.
daily world buzz
great recipe…i just love bacon so much!
Tammy
I thought I’d skimp and save some money by only putting 1 and a half pieces of bacon on each ring….wrong! TOTALLY should have listened to you and did the 3 pieces. Most if them feel apart. But still delicious all the same. Just not as pretty. Great recipe! Thank you!
Pat
I’m sorry sir but I was excited to find this Web site went straight to what I’ll call the home page, had a pic of a big Ole burger on right side with menu next to it in reads in beef, Pork , chicken, appetizers, etc. I have been looking for 15 minutes how to get back to that page with no luck. If your Web site is this difficult to navagate, I’ll get my smoking, q’ing, recipes elsewhere. Thought I found a great Web site till I tried to find my way around. Shouldn’t need a degree to get info from a Web page.
Anne
A new favorite for special occasions. I made a dipping sauce out of mayo/garlic chili sauce and a dab of maple syrup….Soooo Good!!!!
Phil
We have been making these for a few years now, after having seen this recipe. After making them the first time, I wondered how they would be with the onion coated with BBQ sauce instead. I love Sriracha, but have to say the ones using BBQ sauce are our favorite now. I sometimes mix Sriracha with BBQ sauce as well. You do have to be careful, since the sugar in the BBQ sauce will brown more than wth just the Sriracha. If I rinse my hands well after applying the BBQ sauce, and handle the bacon carefully, I don’t get BBQ sauce on the outside as much, so it isn’t as much of an issue. We still make the dip the same. Both are great, thanks for the recipe.
Kirk
I eat Keto and am wondering where all the carbs come from? An entire onion only has 13 carbs and a single slice is less than 1, bacon has virtually no carbs, and most sriracha sauce only has 1 carb per serving.
Culinary Lion
So all recipes are calculated using WP Recipemaker. The onions are Very large and i estimated about 7 oz. each that put the carbs closer to 18 per onion and the sriracha has 1 carb per tsp and the recipe called for 24 tsp. that put the total carbs around 9.75 but the program rounds up. you could use mustard as a binder and reduce the carb count significantly. I hope that explains where i got the nutritional info from. thanks for checking out the recipe.
Deborah
Can you add me to the email list
Culinary Lion
Yup, your’re signed up, check your inbox
Red
Ez to make, came out perfect,great apps….!!?
Culinary Lion
Thanks so much!! appreciate you checking out the recipe!!!
Culinary Lion
Thanks so much! glad you enjoyed the recipe!!
Shannon Neely
OMG Yesss!!!! Started mine for an hour in the oven then transferred to grill with the hot dogs! Amazingggg! Thank you so much this will be a new regular ’round here! For the sauce I used Gray Poupon with Wasabe, Sriracha, Dukes, lemon pepper and some fresh honey to sweeten up. Turned out fabulous!
Culinary Lion
that sounds awesome love the additions you made!! thanks for checking out the recipe!!
Phi
Brilliant recipe but SUPER optimistic on prep time. I’ve done these probably 6-8 times now and prep time is not 15 minutes. First off you are going to make more so that doesn’t help (otherwise you get none). Figure 45 minutes for enough to feed a decent small group (10-12 people). I also found some didn’t like the really hot sauce inside so I did a spicy lime aioli with the Siracha mayo on the side and that was a winner so gauge your crowd. Otherwise this is so good it is requested as a birthday present by several in our group.
Culinary Lion
Thank you for checking out this recipe, Ive found that some people substitute bbq sauce for the spicy sriracha. Your probably right about the prep time, maybe ill bump it up to 20 minutes prep.
Jerry
Love this recipe however I have a question. Your ingredients say ½ Cup of Sriracha but the instructions say 1 Tablespoon. Am I missing something?
Catherine
Wow!! Put on top of a pub burger- very impressive!! Used three strips of thick cut bacon on big ones 2 pieces on small ones. Bacon is easier to work with after sitting out for about 10 mins. Siracha is an excellent compliment to the onion without overpowering the sweetness!!
Culinary Lion
That sounds amazing!!! I need to try that ASAP!!!
Donivan
I smoked mine at 250-260 (highest my smoker will go) for a little over two hours. The bacon looked nice and crispy, the flavor was money however my onions were still quite raw and slightly inedible. I think I may try to microwave the two layer sliced onions before I wrap them but wasn’t sure if you have tried that before? Do the onions usually come out quite firm or should I expect a softer outcome for them? Any suggestions you recommend would be appreciated as I would really like to bring these to my fantasy football draft. They are unique and have a great presentation about them. Thanks
Frank Campanella
You can pre-grill or microwave the onions for 10-15 minutes to soften them up before wrapping in bacon. I like mine a little more firm but that’s just personal preference.