Stupid Simple Roast Chicken

(4 pound) whole chicken,

lemon, halved

kosher salt

Preheat an oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).


Place chicken into a roasting pan and insert lemon halves into the cavity; spread kosher salt over outside of chicken.


Roast in the preheated oven until skin is browned and crisp, the juices run clear, and an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of a thigh, not touching bone, reads 160 degrees F (70 degrees C), about 1 hour. Let chicken rest for 15 minutes before carving.


What can I say - straight forward crispy skin and moist and tender meat.  One tip - rinse the chicken and then set it upright to drain and dry - even in the refrigerator for several hours or at least for 30 minutes room temp.  You will be surprised at how much water drains out.  The salt really makes for a great crispy skin.  Thanks for a no fuss recipe.

Hmmm.....I would give this 3 stars as far as "taste" goes and probably 5 stars as far as tenderness.  The recipe doesn't clarify how much salt I was supposed to use....I think I ended up using about 1.5 to 2 teaspoons.  There just wasn't much flavor....and I don't equate saltiness with flavor anyway.  The tenderness was superb.  And the "stupid simple" definitely had me intrigued.

I haven"t tried this yet but it sounds delicious and super easy. The kosher salt will make it tender and melt-in-your mouth delicious. I will probably let it sit in the 'fridge after I rub the salt in for an h

I have been roasting chickens for almost 30 years and this is the best method I've tried.  I placed a local free-range chicken on a rack, and followed the instructions (only had half of a lemon on hand).  The chicken yielded very little drippings (good sign--the juice stayed in the bird). The drippings were mostly dried out and a very deep brown--the makings of a great gravy. I added some potato water (poured off from the red potatoes I boiled for mashing) to the roasting pan and scraped up every last bit of the browned bits, poured it into a saucepan and thickened it with cornstarch for the best gravy I've made (NO added broth or flavor enhancers). The chicken was juicy, tender and delicious. Thank you for sharing the recipe!

This was AWESOME! I made it tonight and tweaked it just slightly. When I sliced the lemon in half- I sqeezed the juice over the skin of the chicken and then put the halves in the cavity with a 1/2 stick of butter. This was the BEST roasted chicken I have ever made - hands down. And so simple! Thanks!

This was my first time cooking a whole chicken and it was fantastic! Instead of putting lemon halves inside I decided to do a bread stuffing (also a first for me). For the stuffing I used some leftover artisan bread that had gotten hard a diced mushroom diced an eight of a large onion and some rosemary and garlic powder. For the outside of the chicken I didn't use kosher salt instead used rosemary and garlic salt from one of those season grinders (kinda like the sea salt grinders). Again it turned out fantastic! I'm boiling the leftover bones to make chicken and dumplings or chicken noodle soup.

Rinse & let drain upright in fridge. Spread olive oil on skin, then coat with Kosher salt. Nice and crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, and very easy to make!

Elliot, thank you for submitting this recipe! It's so stupidly easy and so good!! Oh my gosh! So moist! I added pepper b/c I like it and butter to the cavity. Followed the roasting directions exactly. This is perfect. I will never fuss w/ roasting chicken at a high heat first and then turning down the heat, etc., for the last hour. They're too high maintenance and aren't even close to this recipe. This is worthy of entertaining guests with. You rock!! Submit more recipes please!!

I just love this recipe! It makes for an easy entree. The only thing I would include is to put about a cup of water in the roasting pan to reduce the amount smoke that can be produced cooking at this high temperature. Otherwise you can add whatever seasonings you might like (BBQ rubs lemon-pepper garlic etc.) or just use the salt and lemon called for. A very versatile starting point or just plain delicious as written.

Sure, the chicken was delicious, but it certainly wasn't worth the mess.

stupid simple roast chicken

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hours

Total: 1 hours, 25 minutes

Servings: 1

Author : Elliott

Ingredients

Instructions

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