Fried Squid Ring Recipe

Fried Squid Ring (イカリングフライ) is squid sliced into “rings,” coated with Panko and deep-fried.  It could be an appetizer dish to go with drinks or a tasty entree for dinner.

Fried Squid Ring is more a home cooking dish than restaurant food.  It can be served at some diner-type restaurants, but more often, you may find it at Izakaya, food and drink bars.  It is like fried calamari in the US, but Fried Squid Ring is definitely always coated with Panko bread crumbs.

When you make Fried Squid Ring at home, you may have to prep some to clean and cut the raw squid.  First, the body part which you will use needs to be detached from the tentacles.  When you remove the tentacles from the body, the guts will come with it too.  Do it slowly and carefully putting your fingers inside the body, detaching anything that is attached to the body.  If you yank the legs out, the guts may break and make a mess.  Then, remove the triangle fin and purple skin.  The skin is thin and slippery and easily breakable, so peel it slowly. You will get the hang of it if you practice a couple of times. If this doesn’t sound like something you want to do, you may be able to find frozen squid (just the body) which is already gutted and peeled at an Asian market.  Save the tentacles for some other use, like in Nimono simmered vegetables.

Before you dip the squid in batter and Panko, remove the moisture very well. Squid has a lot of water and can very easily explode in high temperature oil (from water releasing into the oil).  Also it cooks very fast, so as soon as it’s cooked through, remove from the oil to avoid unnecessary hot oil splash.

Why do we want to make this dish with so much preparation and trouble?  Because it’s so good!  Hot and crispy chewy Squid Ring is wonderful with cold beer or other drinks of your choice.  And it is a great dish with steamed rice.  Simply sprinkle salt and squeeze lemon juice on freshly fried Squid Rings.  Or even Tonkatsu Sauce or Japanese mayo work very well on it. If you’ve never had Fried Squid Ring, try it this weekend!

Print Recipe

4.50 from 2 votes

Fried Squid Ring Recipe

Course: Appetizer, Main Course

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: squid

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Ingredients

• 1 squid
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp water
• 2 cups Panko bread crumbs
• deep-frying oil
• salt
• lemon
• Japanese mayonnaise optional

Instructions

• First separate the squid’s body and legs (tentacles). Remove the guts carefully from inside the body so that the guts don’t break and make a mess. Cut off the guts from the legs and separate the legs. Set legs aside for some other use.
• Remove the fin from the body and peel skin from the fin and body. Slice the fin to 1/2″ strips and the body to 1/2″ rings. Remove moisture from the squid pieces as much as possible.
• In a medium bowl, mix flour, salt, egg, water together with a whisk. Dip squid in the batter, then coat with bread crumbs.
• Heat deep-frying oil to 350 F (175 C) at medium heat. Cook until golden brown turning once or twice, and remove from oil.
• Sprinkle salt over squid. Serve with lemon wedges and mayo.

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