The Ingredient That Gives Sonic's Onion Rings Their Sweetness

Since 1953, Sonic has been the place to go for quick eats and a bit of a show, since employees used to (and in some places still do) bring food out to cars on roller skates. You've probably seen the commercials advertising corndogs, Sonic Blasts, and tater tots (which we ranked as one of the best tater tot brands). Or, maybe you've pulled through for chicken tenders and onion rings. Sonic's onion rings are notoriously crispy and crunchy, a golden balance of sweet and savory, but what makes them irresistible? It turns out that there's one specific ingredient that does the trick.

According to former Sonic employee and current food blogger Stephanie Manley of CopyKat Recipes, the renowned sweetness in Sonic's onion rings comes from a vanilla ice milk mix. If you're looking to follow the copycat recipe, Manley suggests that melted vanilla ice cream will work just as well. It may sound a little outside the box, but fast food restaurants use secret ingredients all the time to create some of your most beloved meals. Case in point, McDonald's adds celery salt to its Chicken McNuggets for an extra flavor boost. You never know what delicious culinary curveballs go into your favorite meals until you peel the curtain back.

Thanks to Manley's copycat recipe, we know that Sonic uses a three-step batter process to make its onion rings. First, the rings are dipped into plain flour, then dipped into the melted vanilla ice cream/vanilla ice milk mix. They are dipped into cornmeal after that and then fried until golden perfection. Manley also reveals that Sonic uses Spanish onions for its onion rings, the absolute best type of onion for onion rings due to its already sweet nature. Sonic's onion rings are handmade fresh in stores, where some locations use a conveyor-belt machine to assist with the daily dipping and frying process.

There's been a touch of controversy in recent years surrounding Sonic's claims that onion rings are made daily by employees, especially after a TikTok video emerged where a Sonic employee described how the chain changed its onion rings from fresh to frozen. This led to some online discourse over the change, with one Reddit thread discussing the same topic. Here, one Reddit user, an alleged Sonic manager, explained that the onion rings are now frozen because Sonic wants "[the] food to be more consistent." Whether or not this is true, at least we know that melted vanilla ice cream can help recreate the OG recipe at home.