Fries may be the standard fast food go-to, but Burger King has been offering customers an onion
ring option for years. These onion rings aren't without controversy, though, and are actually
missing a major component. Here's what you should know about Burger King's onion rings.
Burger King understands the moment of panic at the drive-thru window when you're frantically
trying to decide between fries and onion rings, wishing desperately that you could
have both without paying double the price or consuming double the oil.
As it turns out, you can. Burger King's secret hackable menu includes Frings - an
order made up of both fries and onion rings so you don't have to choose.
An order of Frings gets you a container half full fries and the other half full
of Burger King's infamous onion rings. Though Frings aren't on Burger King's regular menu,
they are popular among those in the know - and for good reason.
While Burger King's onion rings are among the best in the fast food world, their fries can
hold their own against many of their deep fried competitors, and it would be something akin
to heresy to order fast food without fries on the side. The king is a benevolent one.
Like many items on Burger King's menu,
onion rings are not the healthiest food you could put in your body.
While the onion rings lack the excess fat and calories that larger Burger King meals contain,
their vegetarian status does not exempt them from other health hazards, particularly sodium.
While some sodium is necessary for the body to perform certain important functions,
most Americans consistently take in far more sodium than needed. The average recommended amount
of sodium is less than 2,300 milligrams per day - and most Americans consume more than 3,400 daily.
Each small serving of Burger King onion rings contains 840 milligrams of salt, which accounts
for about 37 percent of the daily recommended sodium intake - in a side dish. Add a burger
to the order, and one meal quickly goes above and beyond the recommended sodium intake for the day.
While many fast food joints have different menu items depending on where you are in the world,
Burger King onion rings remain a constant no matter what corner of the planet you're in.
Burger King serves Spicy Shrimp Whoppers in its Japan locations and TaroPie,
a turnover-style dessert stuffed with taro, a root vegetable similar to a potato, in Malaysia.
Burger King classics, however, are consistent among the franchise's nearly
19,000 restaurants scattered across the world. So
no matter where you are in the world, Burger King onion rings won't be far.
Although Burger King onion rings may taste like onion, these deep-fried treats do not
actually contain full slices of onion inside. Burger King has managed to get
away with it by using a kind of powdered onion flavor instead of the real thing.
The result of BK's dehydrated onions is, according to some, a paste-like texture whose flavor is
onion-adjacent but not nearly intense enough to be mistaken for an actual onion. Others claim the
onion flavor makes for an unnatural taste, as though some onion powder sprinkled into
the batter was the extent of the effort made to legitimize the onion of the onion rings.
Though Burger King was not the first fast food joint to create a dollar menu,
it jumped on the bandwagon in 1998 with a menu that featured seven items for $0.99 each.
On that original menu, which was deemed the Great Tastes menu, were onion rings.
While the Burger King value menu has changed over the years,
providing diners with new and improved options that have remained at or around $1 per item,
onion rings have remained a permanent fixture among a rotating cast of ingredients and combos.
Though Burger King was in competition with several other fast food locations that boasted value menus
with a variety of dishes, very few of those chains included onion rings. To this day,
Burger King still stands out from the crowd by simply giving the people what they want:
deep-fried onion flavor that won't break the bank.
"We getting the onion rings? Hell yes we're doing the onion rings.""Cool wife."
Burger King offers six sauces with their meals,
all of which can be put to good use with an order of onion rings: buffalo, BBQ, ranch,
sweet and sour, honey mustard, or BK's famous zesty sauce, a creamy, horseradish-based dip.
While everyone has their personal sauce allegiances, Burger King's zesty sauce is a
company specialty whose tangy, oniony taste pairs perfectly with the onion rings it was made for.
Still, if you're looking for a more traditional dip, Burger King's ranch is a top-rate option,
according to Thrillist, who ranked condiments from across a variety
of different fast food stops and found BK's ranch earned a spot in the top 20.
Melissa starts slurping down ranch and says,
"I'm getting strawberry. I'm getting kiwi… I'm getting … , man I'm getting a big hit of kiwi."
In November 2019, many people were forced to eat their onion rings naked due to a shortage of zesty
sauce across stores. Due to an early snowfall, it became impossible to harvest much of the
horseradish crop. Eric Rygg, president of Silver Springs Food, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
"We think these are new weather patterns that will not go away."
Climate change has made it necessary for many farmers - from huge factory farms to smaller,
locally owned and operated ones - to adjust how and when they plant, harvest,
and distribute the food they produce. But just because climate change demands these adaptations
does not mean consumers will be happy about it. Zesty sauce fans complained on Twitter,
decrying Burger King's neglect. However, plenty of onion rings continued to be consumed.
Burger King's Rodeo products have gone through various transformations over the years.
What started as a limited-time Rodeo Cheeseburger became,
after a few years, the Rodeo Crispy Chicken and the Rodeo Burger,
the latter of which made a comeback in June of 2019. But through it all,
these specialty options have stayed true to the ingredient that makes them unique: onion rings.
We're assuming the smoky BBQ sauce is what gives this special its name,
and when paired with the onion rings, the burger certainly has a Western flair.
Guy from City Slickers says, "Yaaaah-hoo!" Cowboy replies, "It's a good yah-hoo, son."
The crispiness of the rings give this burger great texture, and the BBQ sauce's sweetness adds
a new dimension to Burger King's classic patty. Though we wouldn't necessarily recommend ordering
onion rings alongside the Rodeo Burger due to all the extra sodium you're sure to consume,
we certainly wouldn't dissuade you from it. It's important to follow your onion-happy heart.
June 22nd is National Onion Ring Day. So, in solidarity with all onion ring
eaters dismayed to discover their local fast food joint does not serve
their favorite deep fried side, in 2018, Burger King offered free onion rings to
their customers in exchange for a carton of french fries from their fast food competitors.
Whether Burger King employees kept the fries for themselves or threw them out
in support of the superior side was not determined. Burger King's promotional
move made clear the company's dedication to their onion rings, and to the people who love
them. Though this offer was valid in only select locations in Chicago; Los Angeles;
New York, and Lynn, Massachusetts, the message was clear: onion rings for the people!
There are few joys as simple and pure as the phenomenon of the ringer.
Urban Dictionary defines a ringer in the following manner:
"At Burger King when you order a side of fries sometimes you
accidentally get an onion ring in there. This is called a ringer."
Imagine driving away from Burger King, a burger and fries in the bag beside you.
You wonder briefly if you should have ordered onion rings instead, but it's too late now.
As you snack on fries and drive with one hand, you come across something unexpected in the bag
of fries: a small onion ring, separated from the others to find its way into your bag.
It's a tiny miracle, as well as a necessary reprieve from the monotony
of one fry after another. It is truly an experience not to be taken for granted.
So the next time you come across a stray onion ring in your fries, say a prayer,
do a dance, and thank that big-headed King of burgers while you savor this moment of ecstasy.
In 2017, Lorde admitted to being the mastermind behind the now-defunct Instagram account,
OnionRingsWorldwide, which rated onion rings from different locations on a scale of one to five.
Burger King scored on the low side - very low. Lorde wrote,
quote, "They are not good." She then said that she was glad she hadn't known Burger
King served onion rings because of how disappointing they ended up.
Lorde gave them a whopping one point. The pop star will not be fooled by Burger King's fake
onion filling, and she's not afraid to say it. To voice her dismay, the pop star wrote on an
Instagram caption of the King's rings, quote, "Characteristics were a mulched onion filling."
Apparently a big fan of onion rings, Lorde was not impressed by Burger King. While other restaurants
received high praise, the overall flavor of BK's onion rings was described as having, quote,
"a distinct bitterness." Harsh criticism, but if Lorde says it, it must be true.
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