The perfect Roast Chicken fit for your Sunday dinner table! Moist, golden chicken cooked with potatoes, carrots and onions in one pan. Simple and delicious!
Nothing beats a perfectly cooked roast chicken dinner! Of all of the dinners I have made my husband, this particular one brings a huge smile on his face. HUGE. You can’t beat a good meat and potatoes dish with him.
Roasting a chicken can seem daunting if you are new to the kitchen, but any experienced cook will tell you there really isn’t anything to worry about! Roast chicken is pretty easy. It requires little fuss but it does require some patience to cook.
Chickens come in different sizes (well duh, no big revelation there) and my recipe is based on a 4 lb chicken. Whatever size you get, whether its a little bit smaller or a little bit bigger, the steps are exactly the same! The only difference will be how long it needs to cook. Generally speaking, you are looking at an hour and a half to 2 hours cook time.
Don’t let that time deter you though. You don’t need to stand over the stove watching it. Pop it in the oven and check on it every now and then. The bird will take care of itself otherwise!
Making the perfect Roast Chicken Dinner
While you can roast a chicken all on its own, I love to cook my sides in the same pan. As the chicken roasts, the drippings flavour the potatoes and carrots and make them absolutely amazing! Mmmm! My mouth is watering just thinking about it!
What you’ll need for this dinner:
- whole chicken
- potatoes
- carrots
- onion
- lemon
- fresh herbs (thyme and rosemary)
- salt and pepper
- butter
- olive oil
That’s it! 10 ingredients is all you need to make the most mouthwatering dinner to please the whole family!
What to do:
To begin, I pat the chicken dry and season it with salt and pepper. Then I pop it back into the fridge while I work on prepping my veggies.
Peel and chop the potatoes, carrots, and onions and set them into your roaster or dutch oven. This time, I used small carrots so I didn’t chop them. I season the veggies with salt and pepper and drizzle them generously with olive oil. I toss them together to coat them evenly and then turn my attention to the chicken again.
To prep the chicken, I stuff it with a lemon that I’ve quartered. If the chicken is too small to fit all of the lemon quarters, don’t worry. Then I truss my chicken using kitchen twine.
There are a few ways of trussing a chicken so if you have a preferred method, feel free to use that. I used a method I found on YouTube by ChefSteps.
Once its tied up and cozy, the chicken gets placed in the pan sitting on top of the veggies. There are two reasons for this:
a) the chicken isn’t sitting directly on the pan so it won’t get a wet, soggy skin on its underside as it cooks.
b) as the chicken cooks, its juices will drip onto the veggies beneath and flavour them.
The chicken gets a massage with melted butter and a sprinkle of more salt and pepper. Then everything is sprinkled with fresh thyme and rosemary.
Into the oven it all goes to cook at 425F for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, I baste the chicken with the juices at the bottom of the pan. Then I reduce the temperature to 375F for the last 50-60 minutes of cooking. I try to baste it one more time during that time period and start checking on the temperature of the chicken at the 50 minute point to avoid overcooking and drying out the chicken.
That is it! Add a fresh side salad and you have yourself a wonderful meal!
I remember it all seemed so daunting the first time I even thought to roast a chicken, but it really is much easier than you think and so worth the effort!
Hope you enjoy this delicious meal!
-Cathy
You may also like:
Roasted Turkey Drumsticks
Oven Roasted Lemon Chicken Drumsticks
Maple Dijon Chicken Leg Quarters Dinner
Roast Chicken Dinner
Ingredients
- 3-4 lb chicken giblets removed (if included)
- salt and pepper
- 2 sprigs thyme
- 2 sprigs rosemary
- 1 lemon quartered
- 3 tablespoons butter melted
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 yellow onion quartered
- 8 small carrots peeled
- 4 medium yellow potatoes or russet potatoes, sliced into large wedges
Instructions
- Pat the chicken dry. Season with salt and pepper and set back in the fridge while you prepare the remaining vegetables.
- Preheat oven to 425F. Drizzle the bottom of a dutch oven or roasting pan with olive oil.
- Cut the potatoes and onion as specified above. Peel the small carrots. If using large carrots, cut them into 3 1/2 inch pieces. Add the vegetables to the bottom of the roasting pan.
- Season the vegetables with salt and pepper and drizzle with more olive oil. Toss to coat and spread out in an even layer.
- Remove the chicken from the fridge. Massage the chicken with the butter, spreading it out evenly over the skin. Season again, lightly, with salt and pepper. Stuff the chicken with the lemon (quartered), 1 sprig of thyme and 1 sprig of rosemary. Tie the legs together using butchers twine and tuck the wings underneath the body.
- Place chicken on top of the vegetables. Chop 1 sprig each of thyme and rosemary.
- Roast in the oven for 30 minutes. Baste the chicken with the juices that have run on to the bottom of the roasting pan. Reduce oven temperature to 375F and continue to roast for 50-60 minutes (time will depend on the size of the chicken). Check internal temperature for doneness and continue to cook if needed until it reaches an internal temperature of 165F.
- Let the chicken rest for 15 minutes. Remove twine and unstuff the chicken. Transfer to serving platter with the potatoes and vegetables.
Note: Metric ingredient measurements are provided as a courtesy using a third-party calculator and are rounded to the nearest unit. The recipes provided on this site have not been tested with metric measurements and their accuracy cannot be verified.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided is based on third-party calculations and is an estimate only. Accurate nutritional facts will vary based on the particular brands used, portion sizes, measurement accuracy and more.
