Lemon and Rosemary Roasted Chicken

Big Box VS Your Own Creation

The rotisserie chicken from the big box stores tastes great.  BF buys them regularly.  In fact, he bought one the day he picked up the chicken for this post.   There are many reasons you see them flying through their doors.  Let’s start with the convenience – you can’t beat it.  It’s cooked to near perfection, it’s great for lunches and at $4.98, you just can’t go wrong.  Well, here’s another way to make a delicious roasted chicken and you can master this recipe in no time.  In this lemon and rosemary roasted chicken recipe, you can seal in the juices the same way the seared skin helps flavor a rotisserie chicken.  It’s not difficult to make, the ingredients are simple and it’s fun to experiment with different herbs and seasonings.

Basic Ingredients Deliver Big Taste 

What I love about roasting a chicken is the control I have over the salt content.  A chicken precooked has 140 mg of sodium in 4 oz.  If you have anyone in your family that needs to be on a low sodium diet, a fully cooked and prepared ‘in club’ chicken may not be the best choice.  This lemon and rosemary roasted chicken has a wonderful fresh flavor with a minimal amount of sodium.   Don’t be afraid to try your favorite herbs and seasonings.  You really can’t go wrong.  During the winter months, if I don’t have lemons in the house I like to use a lemon pepper seasoning and it does the trick.

Yes, Chunks of Butter

Yes, we are butter people.  What you see between the skin and meat are chunks of butter.  I think it really helps with the tenderness and flavor.  For this particular roasting, I used unsalted butter and it was great.  I seasoned the outside with ground pepper and ground mediterranean sea salt.  Coating the outside seemed to be just the right amount of salt and if more is needed it can be added to individual servings.  Below I’ve added a video showing how I stuffed and trussed the chicken.  When you truss a chicken, it promotes even cooking and holds all the goodies in the cavity.  Yum. Yum.

I hope you’ll consider this simple recipe the next time you buy a whole chicken or maybe you’ll want to run out and buy one just to try the recipe.  It’s easy to assemble and once you have it in the oven you can pretty much forget about it except for a little basting.  I’ve used the chicken in pasta dishes, sandwiches and when most of the meat has been removed, I’ve boiled the main cavity to make chicken broth.   This is great to have on hand.

Right Out of The Oven 

If you have a particular ingredient or seasoning that you like to use with chicken, please share by leaving a comment below.    As always, thanks for stopping by.  Rose

PS:  Did you know there was a National Rotisserie Day?  It’s June 2nd.  Crazy, right?

Lemon and Rosemary Roasted Chicken

 

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Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

2 hours

Total time

2 hours 20 mins

 

Author: Sock Box 10

Recipe type: Roasted Chicken

Serves: Varies

Ingredients

• 4-6 tablespoons of butter unsalted, salted or seasoned and separated. The amount of butter can vary depending on your tastes.
• 1 medium sized onion cut in large chunks
• 1-11/2 lemons sliced
• 3-4 cloves of garlic. (I've used more)
• Handful of fresh rosemary (I've also used dried)
• Salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• One 3-4 pound chicken

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Wash the chicken inside and out and pat dry.
3. Slice the lemon
4. Chop the onion
5. Chop the rosemary
6. Fill the cavity with lemon, onion, rosemary and garlic.
7. Squeeze a piece of lemon into the cavity.
8. Add a tablespoon of butter to the cavity. Optional.
9. Massage the chicken with softened butter.
10. Lift the breast skin and place chunks of butter between the meat and skin.
11. Truss it. Tie the ends of the drumsticks together and tuck the wings under the body.
12. Salt and pepper or add seasonings of your choice.
13. Place in a greased roasting pan that is about 1 inch larger than the chicken.
14. Roast chicken
15. The roasting time will vary depending on the size of the chicken.
16. Roast at 425 degrees for the first 15 minutes and then reduce temperature to 350 degrees.
17. The total roasting time will be at least 1½ to 2 hours depending on the size of the chicken.
18. Continue roasting until a thermometer registers 165 degrees.
19. Baste chicken with juices or additional lemon juice if you like.
20. Depending on the amount of butter used, you can add water to your pan. I usually do this at about 45 minutes into the roasting time.

3.5.3208