Simplest roast chicken
I know a lot of us are still coming out of the fog of Thanksgiving, but I think we may be ready for another roast bird, aren’t we?
I was really intimidated to try to roast a chicken, but this recipe seemed simple and straightforward enough - and it’s been my method of roasting chicken for over 10 years.
The tricky part about roast chicken is that certain parts cook faster than others, certain parts need to come to a higher temperature than others, so you often end up with some overcooking, which is a roast chicken sin, yes?
The brilliant idea here is to preheat your Dutch oven in the conventional oven so that you can kickstart the cooking of the thighs in such a way that it will cook roughly at the same rate as the chicken breasts. Another awesome part of this recipe is that we get to turn the heat off in the middle of cooking and let the chicken cook in the leftover heat of the oven.
Simplest roast chicken
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 TBS kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 3.5-4 lb whole chicken, giblets discarded **See note
1 TBS olive oil
Directions
Adjust oven rack to middle position, place large Dutch oven (without the lid) on rack, and heat oven to 450 degrees F.
Combine salt and pepper in bowl. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Rub entire surface with olive oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper mixture evenly over the chicken. Tie legs together with twine and tuck wing tips behind back.
Transfer chicken, breast side up, into preheated Dutch oven. Do not place the lid on. Roast chicken at 450 degrees until breasts register 120 degrees and thighs register at 135 degrees, about 25-35 minutes. ** See note
Turn off oven and continue cooking the chicken in the oven’s leftover heat until breasts register 160 degrees and thighs register 175 degrees, about 25-35 minutes.
Transfer chicken to carving board and let rest, uncovered, for 20 minutes.
Allergens: none
**Notes:
If you’re using a chicken larger than 4 pounds, increase cook time (oven-on time) to 35-40 minutes.
For a 4-pound chicken, in my oven, I had the oven on for 30 minutes and oven off for 30 minutes, and this yielded a perfectly moist, perfectly cooked chicken. If you don’t have an instant-read thermometer and your oven typically cooks food as you expect, you may not need to measure the temperature.
