This Whole Roasted Chicken recipe is made with simple ingredients for the best flavorful and juicy meat. The chicken gets flavored with a homemade garlic herb butter, fresh herbs and fresh lemon - so good!
2tablespoonsfreshly chopped herbsI used parsley, thyme and rosemary
salt and ground black pepperto taste
For the chicken
1whole chickenmine was 3.5 pounds; any weight will work; make sure to adjust roasting time and use a roasting pan to fit your chicken's size! Adjust quantity of compound butter, but leave other ingredients the same.
1lemonhalved or quartered (depending on chicken size)
3sprigsfresh thyme
3sprigsfresh rosemary
For the pan/to finish
2white onionstrimmed, peeled and quartered
1headgarlichalved crosswise
½cupwhite wineOR chicken broth
olive oilfor brushing
butterfor brushing
Optional vegetables
1poundcarrotspeeled and cut into chunks (I used whole baby carrots)
1 ½poundspotatoescut into 1-inch pieces (I used halved baby potatoes)
Instructions
Prep chicken: Remove chicken from fridge 30 minutes before roasting. Remove giblets/neck, if applicable. Remove any excess fat and leftover feathers. Pat dry.
Oven: Pre-heat oven to 450°F (225°C).
Compound butter: Make compound butter by mashing softened butter, minced garlic, chopped herbs, a pinch of salt and pepper to taste.
Season chicken: Gently loosen chicken skin. Season chicken with salt/pepper all over (inside and out). Spread ⅔ of compound butter under skin. Spread remaining compound butter inside chicken cavity.
Prep pan and finish prepping chicken: Place onions and head of garlic in a lightly oiled roasting pan. Sit chicken, breast side up, on top. Stuff chicken cavity with halved (or quartered) lemon and fresh rosemary/thyme sprigs. Tie legs with kitchen twine and tuck wings under. Brush chicken skin all over with olive oil.
First part of roasting: Roast chicken at 450°F for 15 minutes. Carefully remove pan from oven and baste chicken with pan juices. (If using potatoes and carrots, carefully lift chicken out of pan onto a plate, add vegetables to pan and toss with juices. Sit chicken back on top.)
Main part of roasting: Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Return chicken to oven and roast for 20-25 minutes per pound. Baste once or twice with pan juices during roasting time.
Finish roasting: Once roasting time is up, remove pan from oven and spread chicken with butter all over. Increase oven temperature to 425°F and roast chicken for 5-15 minutes, until thickest part of meat at thigh and in breast registers an internal temperature of 165°F (if your chicken is already at temperature once roasting time is up, do not continue roasting at 425°F - instead, broil for 2-3 minutes).
Rest chicken: Remove pan from oven and remove chicken to a warmed rimmed plate OR a wooden chopping board with rim. Rest for 15-20 minutes before serving. Drain pan juices to a gravy boat and keep warm. (If you added the potatoes and carrots and they aren't fully tender yet, return to the oven and roast at 425°F for 10-20 more minutes, until chicken is rested/carved and vegetables are fully tender).
Serve: Carve rested chicken and serve with pan juices (and optionally potatoes and carrots).
Notes
Ingredient notes
Chicken: I used an around 3.5 pound organic chicken. The shape was a little funny but I decided nature wasn’t meant to be perfect, so I went with it ? you can really use any size chicken, but you’ll need to adjust both the size of your roasting pan and the roasting time.
White wine: I love adding this to the roasting pan for some extra flavor. The alcohol should cook off entirely, according to science. If you want to avoid using wine, just use chicken broth instead!
Onion: I prefer using white onions for this recipe, but yellow ones will do in a pinch.
Lemon: If you’re not a fan of lemon flavor or don’t have any on hand, you can also stuff the chicken cavity with a quartered onion.
Garlic: I love placing a whole halved head of garlic in the roasting pan, plus minced garlic into the garlic butter I season the chicken with. But if you’re not a huge garlic fan, feel free to skip the head of garlic in the pan.
Butter: If you need to avoid dairy, I recommend using either a dairy-free butter or a really good margarine that indicates on the package that it’s fine to use in high temperature settings.
Herbs: Rosemary and thyme are classics to use in the chicken cavity, plus use both of these chopped together with chopped parsley in the garlic herb butter.
Carrots/potatoes: These are optional, if you want to use the chicken by itself then just skip them. We love adding the vegetables if we’re making a whole chicken for our Sunday dinner! But even if I’m roasting a couple of chickens to use in other recipes, I usually throw some vegetables into the roasting pan, just because they turn out so delicious in the rendered fat!
Recipe tips
Make sure to remove the chicken from the fridge 30 minutes before putting it into the oven. This helps to cook it more evenly.
You need about 1 teaspoon of salt per pound of chicken meat to season your bird. Remember, your whole chicken has a lot of weight from the bones, which is not counted in this calculation. For my 3 ½ pound chicken, I used 1 ½ teaspoons of salt, and then finished it with some coarse sea salt in the end. Make sure to use a pinch bowl with a few teaspoons of salt added when seasoning your chicken inside and out. Discard any remaining salt. Never keep salt you touched with hands that also touched raw chicken at the same time!
I highly recommend tying the legs together to help keep the breast meat from drying out. Make sure to use food-grade, oven-safe twine. I grabbed the wrong one because I was in a hurry, and while it was food safe, it was waxed and the wax completely melted. The chicken was still perfectly fine to eat (the wax was only on the leg bones), but it still annoyed me. Let my mistake be your cautionary tale!
The chicken skin will soften up during the resting time. I just wanted to mention this in case you’re hoping for crispy skin. If you wanted the skin to stay crispy, you’d have to remove it from the chicken ASAP when you remove it from the oven and either eat it right away or keep it on a cooling rack. I don’t recommend doing this, because it will cause the meat underneath to start drying out. Also, then skin holds juices and melted butter that keep the meat juicy, too.
I don’t recommend covering the chicken during resting, because it will make it soggy. The meat is still perfectly hot (I find it almost too hot to carve, even after 20 minutes of resting), as long as it is at room temperature and you don’t have all of your windows open to create a cool draft around your chicken.