This is an easy, simple recipe for a whole roasted chicken with vegetables. The spatchcock technique ensures juicy meat and seasoned, crispy skin alongside delicious roasted carrots, potatoes and fennel for a nourishing, wholesome meal the entire family will love.
I LOVE making a whole roast chicken for multiple reasons.
- First, you get the most bang for your buck. It’s much more cost-effective than purchasing just chicken breasts.
- Also, you get both dark and light meat, which is great for families who have members that prefer both!
- Lastly, I love making homemade chicken bone broth, and the chicken bones from the whole roast chicken are perfect for this.
Easy Oven Roasted Vegetables
My favorite vegetables to use in this recipe are carrots, baby potatoes, white onion and fennel. They offer SO much flavor and are just so comforting. I love that the juices from the chicken flavor the vegetables and they get caramelized while roasting.
To prepare the vegetables, I give them a good wash and then lay them out to dry on a towel. When dried, I roughly chop them and add them to the bottom of the roasting pan. It’s best to try to make the vegetables uniform in size so that they cook evenly, but it doesn’t need to be exact. Another reason this recipe is so easy!
Once the vegetables are roughly chopped and in the baking pan, give them a drizzle of olive or avocado oil and season with 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning, a pinch of salt and pepper. I honestly don’t worry too much about seasoning the vegetables, because they are going to get so much of their flavor from the chicken drippings.
If you don’t have these specific vegetables or don’t want to use them, you can easily swap them out for what you have on hand.
How to Prep the Whole Roasted Chicken for the Oven
To prepare the chicken, first remove from the packaging and pat the chicken dry with a paper towel. Remove the gizzards and either save them if you want to use them in a different recipe (I feed them to my dog!) but save the neck if you are planning on making bone broth. I just keep a container in my fridge that I place them in and when it’s full, I make broth using the bones and scraps of vegetables.
Step-By-step for spatchcocking the chicken
Spatchcocking a chicken may look and seem intimidating, but I PROMISE it is so much easier than you think! Spatchcocking is a technique that removes the back bone from the chicken so that it lays “flat”. This not only provides more surface area to be roasted (aka more crispy skin), but allows the chicken to roast more evenly and MUCH quicker.
To spatchcock a chicken, all you need is a sharp pair of kitchen or poultry shears. Flip the bird over so that it is breast side down, and start cutting just to the right of the backbone. It should be fairly easy. If not, you may need to move a bit to either side. It is normal to have to cut through some small bones and cartilage, but it should be fairly easy to cut from the tail all the way to the neck.
Then, repeat on the left side of the backbone and remove the entire thing.
Flip the chicken back over and press down with both hands on the breast-plate until you hear a crack and the chicken can lay flat.
Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel again to remove any moisture on the surface area. This will ensure that the skin gets nice and crispy!
How to Cook the Whole Roasted Chicken with vegetables
The key to roasting a whole chicken is to use a meat thermometer. It takes all of the guessing out of it and really just makes it so much easier.
Because I live in altitude, a whole roasted chicken usually takes about an hour. If you don’t live in altitude, it will probably be closer to 45 minutes, but you want to roast the chicken until the internal temperature of the thickest part of the breast reads 145 degrees!
time to carve the chicken
Like most meats, it’s really important to let the whole roasted chicken rest before carving. This ensures that the juices have time to cool down and settle and won’t just run out of the chicken, leaving the meat really dry. I let my whole roast chicken rest for 20-30 minutes. Don’t worry, I promise it will still be warm!
To carve the chicken, first remove the legs by pulling them slightly away from the body of the chicken and using your sharp kitchen knife, find the spot in the joint that you are able to cut through. Then do the same things with the wings.
For the breast meat, find the center line of the chicken and cut slightly to each side at an angle, slicing the entire breast off of the bones. There will be extra meat that you can pick off, rotisserie style, once you have carved it.
Whole Roasted Chicken with Potatoes, Carrots & Fennel
Ingredients
- 1 lb baby potatoes
- 4 large carrots
- 1 white onion
- 2 bulbs fennel
- 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
- 1 3-4 lb whole chicken
- 3 tbsp poultry seasoning
- 2 tsp salt (if not included in poultry seasoning)
- 2 tbsp butter or oil
- 1 lemon
Instructions
- Roughly chop all veggies into equal-sized pieces and place in the bottom of baking pan or cast-iron skillet.
- Drizzle with avocado or olive oil and season with 1 tbsp Italian seasoning and a pinch of salt and pepper.
- Preheat oven to 425.
- Remove chicken from packaging and pat dry with a paper towel. Remove the neck part and gizzards.
- Flip the chicken over so that it is breast-side down. Using strong kitchen shears or poultry shears, cut on either side of the backbone to remove it, from the tail to the neck. Do one side at a time. It shouldn’t be very difficult to cut through the skin/bones if you are in the right spot.
- Flip the chicken back over so that it is breast side up and continue to pat dry with a paper towel if needed. Press down on the breastplate until you hear a “crack” and the chicken lays flat.
- Coat the chicken with 2 tbsp melted butter or oil.
- Season the chicken with 3 tbsp poultry seasoning, or use an Italian or Tuscan seasoning that you have on hand.
- Place the chicken either directly on top of the veggies or on a baking rack in the baking pan.
- Roast the chicken until the internal temperature of the thickest part of the breast is 145 degrees.
- Rest for 20-30 minutes before carving.
This recipe goes perfectly with a side salad, like my Kale Power!
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