Our simple Roast Chicken recipe is moist, flavorful, and makes a beautiful meal with little effort. It only takes 15 minutes to prep and is baked in a pan with roasted vegetables.
If you make chicken recipes as much as we do, try our Garlic Chicken, Honey Mustard Chicken, Grilled Chicken Sandwich, and Tahini Chicken Bowls!
Roast Chicken simple enough for a cozy weeknight.
Roast Chicken simple enough for a cozy weeknight.I love how effortless and fool-proof it is to make a beautiful roast chicken at home. All you need to a simple herb butter and some chopped veggies; there's no brining or complicated culinary steps involved. Best of all it's a meal your whole family will love! Remember to keep the leftover chicken carcass to make homemade chicken stock for other recipes, like our chicken noodle soup!
How to Roast a Chicken:
Prep Chicken: If using a frozen chicken, it needs to be completely thaw before using. Remove raw chicken from packaging. Remove the neck and giblets from the cavity (discard them away or use them to make chicken gravy). Pat chicken dry with paper towels.
Make herb butter by combining butter, lemon zest, rosemary, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Gently lift the skin near the chicken breasts and smear herb butter under it, on top of the breasts meat. Sprinkle salt and pepper all over the outside and spread with more herb butter over the outside. Smear any leftover butter inside the cavity. Cut lemons in half and place inside.
Roast: Add chopped vegetables to the bottom of a 9×13-inch baking dish and drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper on top. Place chicken on top of vegetables and roast chicken uncovered at 450°F for 10-15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350°F then cook for 20 minutes per pound, or until the chicken is 165°F on a food thermometer. The chicken should be golden brown and the juices should be clear and sizzling. Remove it from the oven, tent with foil to keep warm and rest for 10-15 minutes before carving.
Carve and Serve: Carve the crispy roast chicken and serve with the roasted vegetables. Use the pan drippings to make chicken gravy. We love to serve roast chicken dinner with my favorite homemade rolls and apple pecan salad.
How to Carve a Whole Chicken:
- Separate Chicken Legs: Gently pull one leg away from the body then slice through the leg meat and skin. With a little more force, pull the leg away from the body until you hear the hip joint pop out. Place a sharp knife between hip bone and the body then cut. Repeat for the other leg.
- Remove Drumsticks and Thighs: Place knife on the natural line that separates the drumstick and thigh then cut through the joint. Repeat for other leg.
- Chicken Breast: Slice along one side of the breast bone to remove one side of breast meat. Remove full breast and then slice into portions by laying skin side up and slicing into thin portions. Repeat with second breast.
Serve With:
- Cornbread Dressing
- Whole Roasted Cauliflower
- Balsamic Roasted Carrots
- Pomegranate and Pear Salad
- French Green Beans
- Broccoli Salad
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Recipe
Roast Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken
- 4 Tablespoons butter , softened
- 1 lemon
- 2 sprigs fresh rosemary (or 2 tsp dried rosemary, finely chopped)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 3-4 large carrots , chopped
- 1 onion , chopped
- 1.5 lbs baby red potatoes , halved
- chicken gravy (optional)
Instructions
- Prep Chicken: If using a frozen whole chicken, thaw completely (1-2 days in the fridge) before cooking. When ready to roast chicken, preheat oven to 450 degrees F and adjust your oven rack so the chicken will sit in the center of the oven. Remove neck and giblets from inside the cavity of the chicken and pat dry all over with paper towels.
- Herb Butter: In a bowl combine softened butter, lemon zest and chopped rosemary. Season the outside of the chicken and inside the cavity with salt and pepper.
- Apply Herb Butter: Use your fingers to loosen and lift the skin above the breasts (on the top of the chicken) and smooth a few tablespoons of the herb butter underneath. Microwave the remaining herb butter mixture for 5-10 seconds, until softened, and smear the remaining herb butter all over the outside of the chicken, legs and wings.
- Finish: Cut the lemon in half and place inside the cavity of the bird. Add the onion, carrot and potato to the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish. Drizzle a little olive oil over the veggies, season them with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Place the chicken on top, and tie the legs together with kitchen twine if desired (not required).
- Roast the chicken, uncovered, at 450 degrees F for 10-15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees F and roast for 20 minutes per pound, or until internal temperature (inserted on middle of thigh and breast) reaches about 165 degrees F. Skin should be golden brown and the juices should run clear. *Check the chicken about halfway through cooking and if the skin is getting overly brown you can cover it with a piece of tinfoil to protect the breast meat from overcooking.
- Rest: Remove chicken from the oven and tent with aluminum foil to rest for at least 10 minutes before carving.
- Serve with the cooked vegetables at the bottom of the pan. Reserve the drippings in the roasting pan, if desired, to make chicken gravy.
Notes
Nutrition
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I originally shared this recipe December 2013. Updated August 2019, September 2022 and September 2024.
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Lauren, this was the most wonderful roast chicken that I’ve ever made! THANK YOU for this recipe!
It was so easy and turned out perfectly!
The time and temps were spot on…it was perfectly cooked..usually, when my cooking time is up, it’s nearly burnt on top but still pink in leg joints and juices are not running clear..
This is a Dream ComeTrue recipe!
THANK YOU!
Do you recommend NOT to wash poultry when you remove from packaging?
Thanks for the great write up and recipe. Our chicken turned out very yummy. Winner, winner chicken dinner. 😉
First time making this dish and turned out delicious. But I put a can of cream of chicken soup over vegetables gave the broth more flavor.
Can you prepare the chicken ahead of time? Will the salt and pepper specifically the salt draw too much moisture out of the bird? I want to be able to get as much prepped as possible so I wanted to put the rosemary butter under the skin and salt and pepper the chicken hours before it is going to be cooked.
Please help. If I’m cooking 2 chickens, in 2 separate 9 x 13 pans, with one 5.83 lbs and one chicken 4.57 lbs, do I cook them by total weight of the two chickens in the oven? or 20 minutes per pound for each chicken separately. I hope that makes sense. I’m making them tomorrow.
Cook each according to its own weight. Ultimately, just rely on a thermometer. The smaller one will come out of the oven first.
A wonderful one dish meal with the vegetables and the well seasoned, fall off the bone chicken! Winner, winner…chicken dinner!
This came out fabulous. I skipped the lemon because my husband hates it, but followed everything otherwise. Everyone liked that it was super tender but still had a crispy crust. Min chicken was 5.5 lbs but was done twenty minutes earlier than I expected, so more like 15 min per pound. Saving this recipe to use any time I don’t want to drag out the heavy rotisserie.
Fantastic, Atkins friendly. Thanks for sharing
I’m curious if you could rotisserie roast this chicken recipe? I’m currently baking it in the conventional oven, I also added a sprinkle of cayenne pepper on the top for a little kick. I know this recipe is great because I make a ton of your recipes.
I used the basics of this recipe to teach my 12yo how to roast a chicken. We switched up seasonings and omitted the veggies. It was a hit! My picky 8yo, who never eats drumsticks, polished one off, all the way down to the bone!
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We used good evoo and coarse ground salt, and poured about 1/3 of 1 lemon’s juice over the bird. I’ll try zest next time–sounds great! Then we seasoned very thoroughly with garlic powder, dried rosemary, ground thyme, and black pepper. We tucked halves of a garlic clove in the breast slits, and put lemon and a whole rosemary sprig in the middle. Your cooking instructions were perfect and we followed them exactly. What a treat! Thank you!
EXCELLENT!!! The chicken was very juicy and the vegetables were delicious. I had some mushrooms that needed to be used so I added them (whole) as well. My family loved this meal and this is now my favorite roast chicken recipe. Also very easy to prepare.