Toasted Onion Fried Green Beans

Toasted Onion Fried Green Beans are like a healthier French fry! Whether you’re a fan of green beans or not, you will love these crispy veggies that are served with a creamy lemon dill sauce that helps cut through the richness of the onion breading.

Green beans sometimes can be considered bland and somewhat lacking in flavor, adding toasted onion (more details on this below) adds an amazing savory onion flavor to the breading.

What is toasted onion?

Toasted onion are large granules of onion that have been dried then roasted to give them a crunchy toasted taste (picture below). They taste like sweet, fried onions and take on an entirely new flavor. You can also similarly buy toasted onion seasoning which is a blend and this is also delicious.

I buy my toasted onion from Amazon or spice stores. There are so many uses for them to add a lovely, savory and toasted onion flavor to so many dishes, including the breading as in this recipe.

These particular toasted onions are larger, crunchier pieces and are not in powder form (which you can also find). I’ve added them to meatloaf, stews, noodle dishes, mixed them with vegetables or stirred them into dips. 

The toasted onions I like have and prefer contain no other ingredients. You can buy toasted onion blends but they have a lot of unnecessary ingredients and who needs all that extra stuff that only serves to dilute the natural onion flavor?  

I have also seen them called Toasted Minced Onion. In addition, I’ve also seen fire roasted onions which I would assume are similar if not the same.

Making the breading for Toasted Onion Fried Green Beans

I specify plain, toasted onion. If a toasted onion blend is used, the recipe will taste different, but still delicious. Because they are pieces of dried onion, I grind them in my spice grinder to make a finer powder, then mix that powder with plain breadcrumbs.

Toasted Onion is different than granulated or onion powder or granulated onion. Why? Because this is dried and toasted onion crumbs. Granulated onion or onion powder is raw onion that has been dehydrated and finely ground. Toasting intensifies the flavor of the onion and makes it sweeter and more flavorful.

Breading without flour

Usual breading is done in 3 stages, flour, egg then breadcrumbs. The flour is used first to help the egg stick. In this recipe, there is no flour step because when it is dipped in the egg the coating gets clumps. Skipping the flour gives a nice, even breadcrumb coating.

How to serve Toasted Onion Fried Green Beans

I like to enjoy them as an appetizer or snack or on their own. For an extra little zip, try dipping them in the lemon dill sauce.