There’s not much better comfort food than a whole chicken recipe - and this is one that is super easy and out of this world delicious! The key to this – and all other whole chicken recipes, in my opinion – is the blast of high heat that the chicken gets when it goes in the oven. This automatically starts crisping up the skin which in turn keeps all the juices inside the bird.
Feel free to make your own changes to this whole chicken recipe by using the spices and seasonings that you and your family like. If you are not a lemon lover, just skip that part.
First thing to do is have your oven heating to 450 degrees. Have cleaned and dried a 3 1/2 pound chicken. Melt two tablespoons of butter and add to that 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the juice of half a large lemon. Rub this all over the chicken.
Now mix together your seasonings. I usually use about 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon onion powder, 1/2 teaspoon paprika and 1/2 teaspoon black or white pepper. Rub this all over the inside and outside of the chicken. Take the other half of your lemon and cut it inside. Put this inside the chicken along with a small onion that you have peeled and quartered and a few whole cloves of garlic.
Put the chicken in a baking dish or on a rack on a pan and put it in the oven. Let it roast at this nice high temperature for about 20 minutes. Turn the oven to 400 degrees and roast for an additional 40 minutes. If you want to check it with a thermometer, you are looking for about 175 degrees.
Remove the chicken from the oven and let it sit for ten or fifteen minutes before slicing. This allows the juices to disperse within the meat of the chicken – rather than running all over your cutting board. You can tent with foil while you are waiting, but don’t make the foil so tight that you lose the crispness of the skin.
This may be the last whole chicken recipe you will ever need!
