Air Fryer Blooming Onion

A crispy coating covers our amazing air fryer blooming onion petals. We serve it with a copycat Outback Bloomin’ Onion sauce!

I first had a blooming onion at a restaurant and fell in love with it immediately. It was such a creative way to serve up a fried onion and it rivaled a delicious onion ring.

As appetizers go, this is a good-looking dish as well! Fun to look at, and fun to eat!

And the sauce…OMG the sauce! This copycat Outback blooming onion sauce is every bit as good as what you’d get at the restaurant. Perfect for dunking those onion rings or even some air fryer potato wedges!

Blooming Onion Ingredients Notes:

• Onion– We use a sweet Vadellia onion for the best flavor after frying it.
• Seasonings– Flour, paprika, garlic salt, thyme, oregano are all pretty basic seasonings.
• Panko – makes the coating extra crispy

Copycat Outback Bloomin Onion Sauce Ingredients:

• Mayonnaise – Miracle whip is not suggested here
• Sour cream
• Ketchup
• Worcestershire sauce
• Horseradish – this is a key ingredient. You can find small green tubes in the veggie section of your local grocery store.

How to make the onion:

• Cut off the top bit of the onion, a half inch or less. Then peel all the “paper” layers off the onion.
• Turn the cut side of the onion down on a cutting board. Starting about a ¼ inch down from the root, make a slice all the way down to the cutting board. Repeat to make four evenly spaced cuts around the onion. Continue slicing between each section to form 16 slices in the onion. Turn the onion back over and separate the petals.

• Get a small bowl and mix together the flour, paprika, garlic powder, thyme, oregano, salt, and pepper.
• In a different small bowl, whisk your eggs and milk together. You can use just the whites of the eggs if that is your preference.
• Place the onion in the flour mixture and cover the entire onion.  Separate petals and spoon flour between each layer.  Shake off excess flour. You don’t want any clumps.  

• Dip the onion into the egg mixture and spoon the egg mixture over each layer making sure to separate the petals while spooning.
• Now place the onion in a large bowl and cover with the panko. Make sure to cover every petal and try to get the panko in between the petals. If there is excess panko, don’t worry about it. It will just make your onion a little extra crispy.
• Carefully lift the onion into your air fryer basket. Spray olive oil on it with a pump spray bottle mister. Don’t use non-stick spray as that can hurt your basket lining.
• Cook at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes.
• Remove and carefully place on a serving plate.

How to make the sauce:

The sauce is a simple mixing of ingredients, with no pans involved.

Grab a small bowl and mix together mayo, sour cream, ketchup, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, and pepper.

This isn’t too spicy if you have anyone you are worried about. Most of the spice comes from the horseradish. So you can adjust the heat by backing off of that a little. But I don’t recommend you leave it out.

This can be cold or room temperature when you go to serve. As long as the onion is hot it will go good with the sauce either way.

Leftovers:

This air fryer blooming onion is always best served fresh. All fried foods are better that way.

But if you somehow don’t finish this off, you can store it in an airtight container. No need to put it in the fridge.

When it is time to reheat, place it back in the air fryer at 375 degrees F and cook for three minutes.

Extra sauce can be stored in a small jar or covered bowl for up to 1 week.

More air fried appetizer recipes you might like:

• Bacon wrapped chicken bites
• Sausage stuffed mushrooms
• Crispy chickpeas
• Italian meatballs
• Loaded nachos