Who doesn’t love a Blooming Onion! They have always been one of my favorite appetizers and make for great conversation when sharing with family and friends.
This blooming onion is seasoned to perfection and although it uses low glycemic healthier ingredients it tastes ‘spot on’ to the ones you get at restaurants.
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This Hubby Lovin’ Blooming Onion is a labor of love for all the members in the THM Mama’s Air Fryer group.
So many members have been trying to get their favorite seasoning blend from Trim Healthy Mama
to stick to onions and so many other veggies.
It took me a few days to get the process down pat, but here we are!!
So let me get to it as this is going to sound complicated, but it really isn’t. I’m going to include some photos to help with the process.
What you need to Make a Blooming Onion
Ingredients:
- Onions
- Egg Whites { either carton or fresh}
- xanthan gum* you need this or guar gum for this recipe to work correctly
- psyillium husk flakes or powder ~ I use the THM Whole Psyllium Husk Flakes
- THM Baking Blend or your favorite homemade version
- Hubby Lovin’ Seasoning Blend ~ this is the spice blend from page 218 of Trim Healthy Table
- Coconut oil spray, spray olive oil or Avocado oil spray
The kitchen tools:
- An Air Fryer or your oven ~ you can see the air fryers I have used here
- To make the Hubby Lovin seasoning before you start everything else.
- a bowl for your batter
- a baking sheet or pan that can fit into your air fryer
- parchment paper
- a knife
- an apple corer that you press from the top down into your onion {optional}
- a Good dose of patience
- a bowl to soak your onions in and a strainer to be able to drain them.
Making the Batter
You want to add your egg whites to a medium/large bowl and then whip or blend the xanthan gum into them until you get soft peaks to form, like in this photo.
I used my coffee frother to do this because we are living in the camper and I just didn’t feel like digging out the hand mixer.
Stir in the other ingredients with a rubber spatula.
I was able to coat my onion with the batter, but you may want to increase the amount of batter if you are using a larger onion or multiples.
About the batter ingredients
The ingredients are pretty simple but you have to follow the mixing instructions to get the lift so that it will coat the onion and allow the seasoning mix to stick.
The xanthan gum is essential for thickening your egg whites and the only substitute that will work simillarly is guar gum.
If your batter seems to thicken too much, you can add some warm water, but only do so at 1 tsp at a time.
For those following the Trim Healthy Mama Plan, the batter is a fuel pull so it won’t add any carbs or excess fat to your onion.
Tips To Help Your Onion Bloom
Soaking your onion in cold water does two things, first it helps to reduce the odors that make us cry when we are cutting onions; secondly it makes opening the petals easier.
I typically wear food preperation gloves and will put my hands in the water to gently work the petals loose. If a couple fall off, I will either place them back into where they fell off or you can just make onion petals with them {almost as fun as the onion blossom}.
I thn drain the water out of the onion for a few minutes to allow it to dry slightly before coating it with the batter.
Some Tips On Coating Your Onion
You can dust your onion with oat fiber if you think it is too wet {it doesn’t add to the carb count so YAY!!} before dipping into the batter.
I normally add a small amount of the seasoning blend to a parchment lined pan that fits in my air fryer and then place my onion on that. and then working from the inside out I sprinkle seasoning over the petals allowing it to fall into and around each one.
After doing that I then spritz with cooking spray {I use avocado oil}
How to Air Fry Your Blooming Onion
Different models of air fryers work a bit differently, so let’s work that out.
In a drawer style air fryer you may not have a ‘baking tray’ so, I would use a small springform pan like you would in an Instant Pot, they are normally about 6-7″ in diameter. Make sure it fits into your basket before coating your onion. You can just use parchement in the basket, but if doing that make sure you use a foil sling like you would in your instant pot to be able to lift the onion out of the basket when it is done cooking.
In an oven style air fryer use a baking tray that is lined with parchment paper {to make clean up easier} for the smaller oven styles you can normally use toaster oven sized pans without an issue. I got some 5″ x 7″ ‘burger’ trays that work great!
The Hubby Lovin Air Fryer Blooming Onion Recipe
- Serves: 2
- Serving size: ½ an onion
- Calories: 40
- Carbohydrates: 6g
- Sodium: 60mg
- Fiber: 1g
- Protein: 4g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
- 1 whole onion
- ¼ cup egg whites (*see Note)
- ⅛ teaspoon xanthan gum
- ¼ teaspoon THM Baking Blend
- ¼ teaspoon THM Whole Husk Psyillium Flakes
- ⅛ teaspoon Hubby Lovin' Seasoning Mix (*see Note)
- ½ cup Hubby Lovin' Seasoning Mix
- Cut the top of your onion and peel the papery skin off the outside, leaving the root end intact.
- Flip the onion to the flat side and score it about ⅛" from the root end through to the top in equal portions around your onion. Then cut each of those portions in ½ in the same manner.
- Use a handheld apple corer/ onion slicer to slice smaller onions into pettals by pressing it firmly from the top down to within ⅛" from the root end.
- Place cut onion into a bowl of cold water and soak for approximately 10 minutes, this allows the petals to open easier.
- While onion is soaking, place the egg whites into a bowl with the xanthan gum and beat until soft peaks form. Stir in the remaining ingredients. set aside. Remove onion from the water and drain it so that most of the water is removed. from the petals.
- Place about ¼ cup of breading mix onto a parchment lined pan. Then dip your onion in the batter mixture and cover the petals, use a pastry brush if needed.
- Set your battered onion onto the parchment where you put the breading mixture. Then sprinkle the remaining breading mixture over the petals and top of your onion.
- Spritz with coconut or avocado oil and place in your oven or air fryer.
- Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes
- Bake at 385 degrees for 15 minutes
Hubby Lovin' Seasoning is a proprietary name for the seasoning used on page 218 from Trim Healthy Table.
[…] One of my favorite ways to use this bulk seasoning mix is as the coating when I make Air Fryer Blooming Onions. […]