Bacon-Wrapped Onion Rings

This one is a gluttonous delight. I’ve done these before, and I know what I wanted to do differently. So happy to share this result with you. Even again, I made a mistake in buying a thick cut bacon. While part of me appreciates the love for the thicker cut bacon, it’s not for everything, and that’s true in this case. Let’s roll – I’ll show you what I did, why I did it, where YOU might want to stop and why I didn’t – and of course that delicious result.

Since the new site launch, I’ve added the recipe cards to the END of my post, because I like for you to see my journey, but hey – if that’s not your thing, I put the link – pretty obvious – towards the top so you can find it. I know when I visit my brothers and sisters for ideas, sometimes I’ve read the post years ago. I know what I want to do, and I want that recipe quick. I know the drill.

---

Recipe

---

The Prep Table

Side story – there’s a lot of wasted food at food drives. It’s interesting to me that with the availability of free food for those in need – some things go unclaimed. I like to think and hope it’s the generosity in people where they don’t take too much to leave more for others. I’ve been a recipient of these unclaimed goods and put them to use. If you recall my back-to-back hot dog posts (Hot Dog Burnt Ends and Spiral-Cut Dogs) – I received those as a result of unclaimed goods. Hey, if you’re going to throw away food – I’ll make something of it. Even a hot dog. Hell, pack of bologna went unclaimed and I made the signature Maltese Bologna (Inside joke: Regulators, Mount Up).

So the food pantry had a pile of unclaimed onions, so MrsForensicBBQ brought them home. We use a lot of onions in our home, but not as many as she brought back. This allowed me to cut uniform pieces among a bunch of different onions. When slicing up these onions, top/bottom removed, peel back the layer and find the right pieces.

I made roughly an inch-thick slice throughout the onion. This made for a few decent sized slices. I grabbed the middle (largest) slices and kept two layers of the onion together. Major reason for this is structure, but also I wanted a very present onion flavor in an onion ring – call me crazy. I don’t think three would be an overkill either, looking back – these were a dish on their own.

I use disposable gloves for EVERYTHING. It’s not so much that I’m a germaphobe, or anything – but I I think it’s important to keep the foods you cook as pristine as you can. For your onions/garlics – I just don’t want that shit on my hands – plain and simple. But I do think a level of cleanliness is important.

Yeah, but not for this. Threading a piece of bacon through, around and through again a piece of onion really sucks. After I think two of them, I ditched the gloves and got dirty. Dexterity was necessary and bacon is slippery. Most products label their bacon as “thick cut” as you’re aware. This one did not, but it was definitely a thick cut. I think Oscar Meyer is notorious for their cheap thin bacon, and I would’ve much preferred that. However, adapt and overcome.

Wrap that bacon as best you can. It’s an ugly process, but you really just want one layer of bacon throughout the ring. Depending on how you like your bacon (soft vs. crispy) this will add to your mindset for your cook. I mentioned in the opening that I’ve done these before and I wanted to improve on it. In short, I wanted to burn the hell out of these ones. I wanted a crispy ass bacon – bite through, not pull. So that’s what I was going to do.

So it’s a relatively decent job – isn’t great, isn’t terrible. It got better the more I did it, but still isn’t pretty. I mean – GENERALLY, bacon is pretty and beautiful, but you want that pig strip to stretch the ring, and I failed on some of them. So we’ve prepared the goods for the smoke – let’s go.

---

The Process

My general go-to is prep that smoker for 225 degrees for just about everything. I mentioned I wanted a crispy, well done bacon – so we’re putting a little more heat to her at the end. If you want an overall softer result and don’t plan on going crispy, do the 275 and let it roll until you’re satisfied (You’ll see below where I suggest you pull them).

When I made these before, I was left with a soft, “pully” bacon that was tasty, but not what I was looking for. I’ve bacon wrapped an embarrassing amount of items, and I generally want a crispier texture (unless it’s bacon by itself). That’s the beauty in smoking and cooking – trial and error. So I wanted a little more heat than usual to capture the smoke. I still had my Char-Hickory wood base from the previous smoke, but I topped it with Apple. (Applewood smoked bacon, apple wood to smoke – makes sense). By the time it was set and ready to go – the apple was rolling.

Season those rings on all sides and put them in that smoke. I’ve grown more and more accustomed to using the jerky rack, Bradley rack, frog mats – something in addition to just going right on the grates. The reason is for ease of transport. So much easier to grab the rack than to keep transferring to a cutting board. So let the smoke roll over them for about 45 minutes and then give them a flip.

After about 45 minutes, I gave her a flip and felt the texture of each as I was doing it. It was as expected, I didn’t need to do anything else. I was thinking of another dusting, maybe a BBQ sauce glaze, but nah – I’m just going to let this go. Fast forward another 45 minutes:

So anyone trying to sell goods, make a name for themselves – they’re going to pull them rings at this point. You have a great color – a soft, easy to bite into bacon – and no doubt a good onion flavor. I’ll tell probably most of you that this is when to pull them and enjoy them.

Not me.

I wanted to burn these sumbitches. When you order an onion ring, you want that crisp. I wanted crisp. My FINE SWINE rub has a good amount of dark brown sugar and I wanted that heat to blast it into a carmelized heaven. Again, many of you will want to stop here… come see why I didn’t.

---

The Result

Bacon has the smoke, let’s crank this thing to about 400 degrees and burn em. This won’t take long – probably a whole 10 minutes. So I did it, flipped after five and pulled ’em out. In addition to my marathon Sunday cook – I made a batch of my BBQ sauce and introduced my super-hot pepper blend to make a HOT bbq sauce. I put just a little drizzle on there because I wanted that bacon/onion flavor. Behold:

As I type this, MrsForensicBBQ is going to sleep and said these looked like bacon donuts. They are most definitely not bacon donuts, but they are a beautiful blend of sweet and spice. Let’s walk through it – those onions are pliable, no question. I didn’t eat one yet, but it was obvious. My FINE SWINE has everything you’d expect in a pig seasoning including brown sugar. Putting that much heat on brown sugar caused that blackened dark look. The BBQ sauce isn’t actually light in color – as you can see on the board – but the reaction when it met the seasoned bacon makes it appear way lighter than it is.

As soon as I bit into one, it was truly perfect. For me. The bite went completely through, I didn’t pull an onion, I didn’t have to pull from the bacon, it was a clean bite. The “burn” flavor wasn’t there – albeit the photos would suggest differently. And it wasn’t just a crunchy mess, there was still a bit of chewiness. I expected it to be almost flaky – but it wasn’t. I couldn’t have been happier at this result.

MrsForensicBBQ and her friend came home right about when I pulled these off the smoker – so they got to hear the reaction. With a hobby like this, there’s a passion and when things go right/wrong, you get an audible result. In this case, it was an exclamation of excitement – I was so happy with these. The BBQ sauce added a beautiful. savory-ness (patent pending) – accompanying the bite perfectly. I knew I didn’t want it soaked, I just wanted a little bit. My first iteration years ago I brushed a sauce on the onion before the wrap, and I much prefer this outcome.

This was a fun one. I hope I gave you all something to think about – how to tailor your cooks to your audience (in my case, party of one. Me.) and what the results are and can be. Thanks again, until next time!

---

The Recipe