GC Crispy Fried onions are slices of onions that are either pan-fried or deep-fried and consumed as a popular snack food, garnish, or vegetable accompaniment to various recipes. Crispy deep-fried onions are called "French fried onions" in Southern cooking of the United States. Smaller and irregularly shaped (from being deep-fried until they are crunchy) onions are an integral part of the American dish green bean casserole. When you fry onions at the beginning of a dish, you want them to soften more or less completely, become translucent and then (sometimes) take on a little bit of colour without charring, and turn from eye-wateringly, breath-foulingly pungent to mild and sweet.