Herb-Roasted Chicken

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This Herb-Roasted Chicken features a juicy, succulent inside and a savory, crispy outside that is *chef’s kiss* decadent. Turn the leftovers (if you have any) into wraps, sandwiches, bone broth, and more! Tips and tricks are included so you get the most out of the process! {Paleo}

Spiriteds, this Herb-Roasted Chicken recipe is love at first bite. Omigosh. We are just tucking all the flavors into one recipe with onions, garlic, lemons, rosemary, thyme, and sage. Also, total side note, any readers here ever watched the show Rosemary & Thyme? No? Just me? I always enjoyed it, even when I knew whodunnit before the episode was over. It’s a delightful, cozy mystery series. 

I digress with the side notes.

Making an Herb-Roasted Chicken has been goal of mine ever since we made Lemon Baked Chicken (which I LOVE to turn into chicken wraps and sandwiches). I wanted to create a roasty-toasty complement with slightly deeper flavors and a crispy texture. And that’s what this is. Juicy, succulent insides and a savory, crispy outside. Ooh, and it also makes for an incredibly divine Homemade Bone Broth recipe.

Speaking of alsos, Herb-Roasted Chicken is, in addition to flavor, big on presentation. It just looks delicious, and it’s the perfect feature for special occasions, too. Don’t mind this recipe. It’s over here looking dramatic and amazing and perfect for all kinds of situations. It’s just as easily prepared for a family meal at home as it is for something more formal. You cannot go wrong with this main dish recipe.

So let’s get our savory on and start some roasting!

This Herb-Roasted Chicken is ideal for

• Family get-togethers. Especially if you want a little extra presentation. The roasted, slightly charred look of the chicken is dramatic, as is the flavor. And a five-pound chicken is perfect for a small gathering of your nearest and dearest.
• Turning into sandwiches and wraps. Because this chicken recipe is packed with herbaceous ingredients, the leftovers are savory and perfect for adding to other meals. That is, if you have any leftovers to spare!
• Homemade Bone Broth. Nothing needs to go to waste in this recipe. Add the bones and pan drippings to a slow cooker to make a delicious batch of Homemade Bone Broth that can then be used in soups and stews, or sipped from a mug. Because why not?

Herb-Roasted Chicken is easily part of an everlasting meal in which you take bits and pieces from this one recipe and turn them into several new recipes. It’s one way to get more bang for your buck! And that’s why I now err on the side of a larger chicken than a smaller one. I might pay more up front, but I get more to work with over time!

Herb-Roasted Chicken ingredients

• Whole chicken. For this recipe, I roasted a five-pound chicken. Fresh is best. If frozen, please thaw completely before beginning the recipe.
• Olive oil. Word to the wise? Just keep a lot on hand! You will want it not only to coat the chicken but also to for basting during the roasting process.  
• Sea salt. A few pinches in the olive oil and herb mixture and you’re set. If you prefer more, then definitely sprinkle more on your chicken before roasting it.
• Onions. Two large or three to four smaller onions, any color. I like to use a combination of red and white. You’ll use these in the bottom of the baking dish or roasting pan. So the actual quantity will depend on how many will fit in your dish.
• Garlic. Six to eight garlic cloves is a good starting point. Some for the baking dish or roasting pan and a few to place inside the cavity of the chicken.
• Lemons. About two. Sliced and divided amongst the onions and garlic in the pan.
• Herbs. You can’t go wrong with rosemary, thyme, and sage.

Helpful equipment: A 9×13 baking dish or roasting pan, twine, meat thermometer, aluminum foil, and a sharp carving knife.

How to make Herb-Roasted Chicken

1. Place the oven rack in the lower third of the oven and then set the oven to 425 degrees. In a small dish combine the olive oil, sea salt, and dried herbs. Set aside.
2. Add enough water to a roasting pan to cover the bottom. Add the onions, 4-5 garlic cloves, lemon slices, and fresh herbs to the pan. Set the chicken on top of the ingredients in the roasting pan and use a pastry brush to drizzle half of the olive oil and herb mixture over the top of the chicken. Gently slide your hand underneath the skin of the chicken, and gently spoon in the remaining olive oil and herb mixture. Insert 2 garlic cloves and a few fresh herbs into the cavity of the chicken, careful not to overstuff the chicken. Tie the legs together, using a piece of twine.
3. Place the pan in the oven and roast until the internal temperature of the chicken thigh is about 175-180 degrees (about 2-2.5 hours), basting every 30 minutes with additional olive oil. After the first hour of roasting, rotate the pan 180 degrees. After the second hour, rotate the chicken 45 degrees and let roast for about 15 minutes. If more roasting time is needed, then rotate the pan 180 degrees and roast for another 15-30 minutes.
4. Once the ideal internal temperature is reached, then remove the chicken from the oven and tent it with aluminum foil for about 10-20 minutes.
5. Serve warm or refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for about 3 days. 

Side note: Be careful not to overstuff the chicken. A few herbs and garlic cloves will go a long way.

Fresh versus dried herbs

Okay, so I’m a little over the top on this. I like to use dried herbs in the olive oil mixture and fresh herbs in the baking dish or roasting pan. Because why? Because the fresh herbs infuse the pan drippings and liquids quite well. Fresh herbs are, in general, so lovely. And the dried herbs are useful for making a thicker, highly concentrated olive oil rub that spreads evenly. 

But you can work with either fresh or dried if you have no inclination to mess with both. You’ll typically need about three time as much in fresh herbs as you would need from dried herbs. Dried herbs are more concentrated and so take less to achieve the same flavor.

Side note: If a recipe calls for fresh herbs, you don’t have any, and you’d like to use dried instead, then use only 1/3 the quantity called for. However, because dried herbs are concentrated, that might still be too much. Trust your gut and sprinkle in as desired, taste-testing as you go, if possible. 

Why isn’t my roasted chicken done?

There are several reasons why your chicken might not be done, even though you’ve been roasting it for several hours. Here are a few possible culprits:

• It’s large enough that the oven has trouble roasting it evenly. My own oven is like this. It doesn’t always evenly heat larger dishes. In the next section, I will show you how I rotate my chicken so that all parts get exposed to the hottest part of the oven.
• The oven temperature isn’t accurate. The oven might read 425 degrees, but that doesn’t mean that’s the actual temp inside the oven. My mother-in-law’s old oven was like this. She always had to adjust the temperature setting to match how her oven operated. It is primarily trial and error to decipher what temperature settings you should use.
• It is overstuffed. Add only a few herb springs and garlic cloves to the cavity. Remove any excess, if you can do so without burning yourself, or plan for a longer roast time.
• The chicken wasn’t fully thawed. If you work from a frozen chicken and thaw it in advance, there are often internal spots that may still be frozen, even if the chicken feels thawed to the touch. In this case, patience is key. It will simply take extra time for the oven to do its job.
• The meat thermometer is faulty. This one is tricky because we follow internal temps rather than baking or roasting times for poultry, beef, and pork dishes, to name a few. K-Hubs and I happen to have two meat thermometers, so if we aren’t sure, we use the backup to double-check. But we try to wait it out and rotate the pan so the chicken has a chance to cook through.

How to evenly roast a chicken

If you ask my family, they’ll tell you I am OBSESSED with rotating food in the oven. And if you’ve been following along for a while, you have probably noticed instructions for rotating throughout many Spirited recipes! Well, I’ve taken my obsession to a new level and provided a diagram. 🤣

When I roast a chicken, I like to leave it in the oven for 60 minutes and then rotate it 180 degrees so it faces the opposite direction. And I favor left-to-right. Sometimes this is all that’s needed, and after two hours of roasting time, the chicken is done. (The top two images in the above diagram)

But sometimes, the temp is close but not quite. And when that happens, I continue roasting, this time in 15-minute increments, rotating back-to-front or front-to-back. (The bottom two images.) I can’t prove it with 100% certainty, but I find this prevents the undercooking or overcooking of certain parts of the chicken. Normally, I don’t like to open my oven frequently, but if I get stuck, then this is my fallback strategy. I also work in smaller time increments after the first two hours so my chicken doesn’t go from underdone to overdone.

If your chicken is larger than the five pound chicken used in this recipe, then you might extend the 60-minute increments to 75 minutes and the 15-minute increments to 20- or 30-minute increments. 

However you choose to rotate your chicken, or how often, it’s important to baste it with olive oil approximately every 30 minutes.

Don’t throw that away!

The pan drippings and chicken carcass are the perfect additions to a slow cooker for Homemade Bone Broth. The roasted flavor seeps through the water to flavor the broth with an extra warmth.

You can also use the pan drippings to make a gluten-free gravy if you’d like. A few gravy recipes we’ve made, Gluten-Free Gravy and Gluten-Free Turkey Gravy, are ideal inspiration for a chicken-flavored gravy. We now include the pan drippings toward the liquid amount required to make the gravy and find that helps create a thicker consistency. If it’s too thick, you can always stream more broth in the gravy to thin it out to your liking.

Savory main dishes to share!

Spiriteds, the following recipes are perfect to share with others, turn into succulent leftovers, or a combo of both! 

• Herb-Roasted Turkey
• Oven-Roasted Turkey Breast
• Lemon Baked Chicken

Spiriteds, stay well and stay wild. I’m glad you’re here! 🩷

Herb-Roasted Chicken

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This Herb-Roasted Chicken features a juicy, succulent inside and a savory, crispy outside that is *chef’s kiss* decadent. Turn the leftovers (if you have any) into wraps, sandwiches, bone broth, and more! Tips and tricks are included to help you get the most out of the process! {Paleo}

• Prep Time: 25 minutes
• Tenting: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 2 1/2 hours
• Total Time: 3 1/4 hours
• Yield: 5–6 servings 1x
• Category: Main Dishes
• Method: Oven
• Diet: Gluten Free

Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

• 5 pound whole chicken, fresh (preferred) or fully thawed
• 2 large or 4 small onions, halved, any color
• 2 lemons, sliced
• 6–8 cloves of garlic, divided
• Several sprigs fresh rosemary and thyme and sage leaves

For the olive oil and herb mixture:

• 1/4 cup olive oil (plus more for basting)
• Pinch of sea salt
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/8 teaspoon dried sage

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Instructions

1. Place the oven rack in the lower third of the oven and then set the oven to 425 degrees. In a small dish combine the olive oil, sea salt, and dried herbs. Set aside.
2. Add enough water to a roasting pan to cover the bottom. Add the onions, 4-5 garlic cloves, lemon slices, and fresh herbs to the pan. Set the chicken on top of the ingredients in the roasting pan and use a pastry brush to drizzle half of the olive oil and herb mixture over the top of the chicken. Gently slide your hand underneath the skin of the chicken, and gently spoon in the remaining olive oil and herb mixture. Insert 2 garlic cloves and a few fresh herbs into the cavity of the chicken, careful not to overstuff the chicken. Tie the legs together, using a piece of twine.
3. Place the pan in the oven and roast until the internal temperature of the chicken thigh is about 175-180 degrees (about 2-2.5 hours), basting every 30 minutes with additional olive oil. After the first hour of roasting, rotate the pan 180 degrees. After the second hour, rotate the chicken 45 degrees and let roast for about 15 minutes. If more roasting time is needed, then rotate the pan 180 degrees and roast for another 15-30 minutes.
4. Once the ideal internal temperature is reached, then remove the chicken from the oven and tent it with aluminum foil for about 10-20 minutes.
5. Serve warm or refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for about 3 days.

Notes

• Helpful equipment includes a 9×13 baking dish or roasting pan, twine, a meat thermometer, aluminum foil, and a sharp carving knife.
• Yield is an approximation.
• Be careful not to overstuff the chicken cavity and ensure the chicken, if it was frozen, is fully thawed before beginning.
• If you would like to use fresh herbs in the olive oil and herb mixture, then triple the amounts listed for the dried herbs.
• Use the pan drippings to make Gluten-Free Gravy or the Pan drippings and carcass to make Homemade Bone Broth.