When you’re walking down the snack aisle in the grocery store, common chips and munchies you might see include Doritos, Sun Chips, Pringles or Stax potato chips, pretzels, and popcorn. One of the more unusual snack options — and a personal favorite of mine — are Funyuns.
Funyuns were introduced in 1969 by Frito-Lay. These cornmeal-based snacks are ring-shaped to resemble onions or fried onion rings and are coated with a mix of seasonings that gives them a salty, oniony flavor. Some fun facts about Funyuns: the original name choice was OnYums, but that name was already a registered trademark of Rudolph Foods. Funyuns get some mention in popular culture, including in Breaking Bad, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and even Avengers: Endgame.
Aldi sometimes sells its own version of Funyuns, and my family decided to give them a try and see how they compare to the name-brand.
Clancy’s Onion Rings cost $1.99 at the time of publication, which comes out to about 33 cents per ounce. Name-brand Funyuns at Walmart cost about 71 cents per ounce at the time of publication, so the Aldi onion rings clearly cost a lot less.
The Clancy’s Onion Rings are Aldi Finds, which means you can only find them in stores for a short time. Aldi does not offer online ordering for products that aren’t in stock at your local store.
These aren’t a health food, but you probably already know that. Ingredients include cornmeal, vegetable oil, rice meal, onion powder, maltodextrin, salt, sugar, yeast extract, natural flavors, spices, garlic powder, citric acid, paprika, caramel color, and silicon dioxide (anti-caking).
If you’re looking out for allergens, these contain milk. These are gluten free.
Nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)
One bag contains about six servings. One 1-ounce serving (28 grams, or about 11 rings) has 140 calories, 7 grams of total fat (9% DV), 1 gram of saturated fat (5% DV), 270 mg of sodium (12% DV), 16 grams of total carbohydrates (5% DV), and no added sugars (or at least not enough to count on the nutrition information panel).
These Aldi onion rings look at lot like their Funyun counterparts, and they’re pretty good on their own merits. They’re crispy and airy, with a decent amount of seasoning. My family didn’t think these tasted exactly like Funyuns. They don’t have as strong of an onion flavor, which might be either good or bad depending on your taste preferences. While they aren’t quite the same as Funyuns, these taste fine and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy them again.
The Verdict:
Clancy’s Onion Rings are an Aldi take on Funyuns, a crunchy, airy, cornmeal-based snack shaped like round fried onion rings. These don’t have quite the same bold onion flavor compared to Funyuns, but they’re good anyway. If you like Funyuns, give these a try.
I really liked them and even liked the red”hot” ones better but havn’t seen either one in over a year.
These are tolerable, though not seasoned enough and causing them , for me, way too cornmeal tasting
If your looking for a funyum replacement, these aren’t it.
These are OK, wish they were crispier and a little more onion flavor