Are you ready to start making the best onion bhajis around? Look no further than this onion bhaji recipe. It gets outstanding results.
These are the onion bhajis that feature in m cookbook ‘The Curry Guy’ and so many people have tried and loved it. The thing I like most about this onion bhaji recipe is how crispy they get on the exterior while being super soft on and hot in the centre.
If you’re counting the calories, you might also like to try my air-fryer onion bhajis and baked onion bhaji recipe.
BE SURE TO check out the step by step photos below and your onion bhajis will be better than anything you can purchase. I promise!
So crispy and delicious. You’re going to love this one.
These are real onion bhajis, not a lot of stodge!
So often, you go out and order onions bhajis just to find they are like little balls of gram flour bread without much onion in them. More often than not, it is the ready made meals that have these stodgy onion bhajis in them.
You won’t find that with this recipe!
The onions are first salted to extract moisture out of the onions. Then, that liquid is used to make the batter. The batter really just holds them together. What you find inside is almost all onion!
So here you have my famous and authentic restaurant style onion bhaji recipe!
Make the recipe your own:
Feel free to play with the recipe some. If you like them spicier, add chilli powder or more fresh chillies. Want to try different spices…? Why not?
Just in case you aren’t familiar with panch phoran – it is Indian five spice. You can purchase it at most Asian shops or you could make it yourself if you have the ingredients on hand.
Just take equal measures of fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, black mustard seeds, onion seeds and cumin seeds.
Give the mixture a good mix and you have panch phoran. Add as much or as little as you like. Play with the recipe and have fun!
If you like cooking by photos, I have step by step pics below.
The written recipe is at the bottom of this page.
Sprinkle the salt over the onions and leave for an hour. Then add the remaining ingredients.
Form the onion mixture into small onion bhajis.
Get you bhajis all ready before frying.
Cook in batches. This is important. Add to many and it will lower the oil temperature.
Transfer the onion bhajis to a paper towels after the first frying.
Raise the heat and fry the bhajis for a few more seconds.
These are so good!
Dig in!
If you love this recipe check out these other similar ones:
BIR Style Cooked Onion Onion Fried Rice Chicken Curry with Onions
Yield: 15
How To Make British Indian Restaurant (BIR) Style Onion Bhajis
Prep Time40 minutes
Cook Time20 minutes
Total Time1 hour
Ingredients
3 white onions slightly larger than tennis balls
Oil for deep frying
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon garlic paste
3 green chillies - pounded to a paste
1 tablespoon panch poran*
1 tsp chilli powder
4 tbsp rice flour
140g (approx) sifted gram flour
3 tablespoons finely chopped coriander leaves
Instructions
Cut the onions in half and then finely slice them. Mix the salt into them and set aside for an hour or so.
After an hour the onions will be limp and moist. Add the remaining ingredients to the onions, being careful not to add to much gram flour. You should easily be able to pick up a ball of the onion mixture.
Divide the mixture in to small bhajis.
Heat some oil for deep frying to 160c (320f).
When this heat is reached, cook the bhajis in batches until they turn light brown. Transfer to a plate while you cook the remaining bhajis. At this stage, you are not cooking the bhajis through. You just want to get them started.
Turn the heat up until your oil reaches 180c ((356f)
Add the bhajis in batches and cook for a further couple of minutes until they are crispy and deep brown in colour.
Transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain excess oil and serve hot.
If not serving immediately, place in a warm (not hot) oven.
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Cut the leek, carrots, spring onions and red onions into thin strips - try to get them the size of long matchsticks. Mix with the chillies and the ginger. Pour the oil into a large non-stick frying pan and heat until very hot. Mix the vegetables, a little at a time, with some of the batter.
*Paanch Phoron translated '5 spices' is a whole spice blend of equal parts of spice including fenugreek seeds, nigella seeds, cumin seeds, black mustard seeds and fennel seeds. You can blend your own though the whole spice mix is readily available at Asian shops.
They are technically the same. It could be a bhaji, bhajji, or pakora, depending on the region where it is made. In the west, it is known as bhaji; in the south, it is called pakodi; and in north India, it is known as pakoras. And just like any other recipes, these differ widely.
The best fix is to make sure your onion is as finely sliced as possible – the finer the mixture, the better it will bind. If your bhajis are still falling apart in the oven, we'd recommend trying a muffin tray lined with low calorie cooking spray to separate the mixture into 12 individual moulds.
Kanda Bhaji are fried onion fritters. These crisp fritters are prepared mainly with onion and gram flour (besan). They make for a good tea time snack served with a side of green chutney or tomato ketchup. Onion bhaji is a popular street food snack in Maharashtra.
Combining thinly sliced onions with a spiced chickpea flour batter and pan-fried until crispy, these onion fritters are gluten-free, egg-free, vegan, and a healthy appetizer, snack, or side! There's nothing quite like a portion of onion bhaji to complete an Indian meal.
They were alarmed by its potent smell. But when they did use it, they immediately got it. Asafoetida is the most simultaneously misunderstood and sublime ingredient in Indian cuisine. It is essentially a gum resin extracted from ferula, an herb in the celery family.
Fritters. In India we usually dip thinly sliced vegetable in besan batter( gram flour) and deep fry them, and call them bhajiyas. Abroad, a mixture of flour and/or eggs in sugar/salt is used as batter. The fruit or vegetable is dipped in this batter and fried… this is called fritters.
If you are using all-purpose flour in your batter, stirring it too much will cause it to become stretchy as the gluten develops. This will make your fritters absorb a lot of oil and make them promptly soggy. Just stir lightly to combine the salt, spices and water together.
Once you've made these, ideally you should eat it within 4 hours. If you allow any left overs to cool, make sure to refrigerate in a container with a lid and chill. You can keep leftovers of Onion Bhajis in the fridge for approximately 3 days or so.
Place onion bhajis on a wire rack over a baking tray and heat for 10-12 mins (from chilled), 14-16mins (from frozen). Ensure onion bhajis are piping hot throughout before serving. Do not reheat. Once defrosted do not re-freeze.
The onion bhajis will be at their crispiest when freshly cooked, but you can make them ahead if you prefer. Make the bhajis, then cool, cover and refrigerate for up to two days. Reheat on a tray (uncovered) in the oven at 200C/400F for 5-6 minutes, until hot throughout.
For the browned onions, add 2-4 tablespoons of oil to a pan, 2 sliced onions, and a dash of salt.Cook about 5 minutes until brown. You can cook them longer (a total of about 30-40 minutes) if you truly want to caramelize them, but I find these browned, crispy onions are perfect additions to curries or a biryani.
For a meat or veg curry, heat a splash of oil, then add the paste and diced meat or roughly chopped root veg, and fry for about 5 minutes, before adding tomatoes, passata or coconut milk with a splash of stock to make your sauce. Stir in pulses.
Traditional onion bhaji recipes call for gram flour (chickpea flour), but I realise most of us don't have that lying about at home (if you do, great job!). So I created this no-gram flour recipe using just plain flour so you can whip up a batch of onion bhajis with pantry ingredients.
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Introduction: My name is Msgr. Benton Quitzon, I am a comfortable, charming, thankful, happy, adventurous, handsome, precious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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