Slow Roasted Chicken: A simple method for a whole chicken
This foolproof whole chicken recipe will have you ditching the Costco rotisserie chicken in your meal rotation and replacing it with this delicious, quick and easy week night meal! Complete with crispy skin, tender meat, and low effort, you’ll be sure to have this classic roast chicken on repeat.
The bonus? You’ll have leftover chicken AND you’ll get to make delicious bone broth after your meal!
Print Recipe
This delicious roasted chicken took little hands on prep & fed our family of five with leftover chicken for another meal!
In our family, we believe eating simple family meals that nourish our bodies and allow us to gather and celebrate. We use a simple assortment of ingredients that allow us to prepare delicious recipes like this juicy chicken with minimal effort! Not even your picky eaters will complain about this meal being on repeat. Pair it with a simple vegetable and carb, and you’ve got the best chicken meal for only a little bit of effort!
A note on meat quality: You can make an amazing and delicious slow-roasted chicken (& broth!) with ANY chicken. While we’d love for you to serve our high-quality chicken, we know that it’s not in everyone’s budget. There’s been times we’ve survived off the discount bin chickens at the local grocery. Buy the best quality you can afford, and nourish your family! Don’t fret over it. In reality though, we’ve learned that buying a whole chicken at a lower price than individual cuts enabled our family and many of our customers to get the quality they wanted with the savings from buying a whole bird. One bird feeds our family of five for three meals– that’s a huge cost savings if you compared buying boneless skinless breasts for three meals. You’d also miss out on the broth– and that’s an added health benefit that you can’t get from buying boneless breasts!
Kitchen Essentials
Dutch oven or granite ware roasting pan, any oven safe heavy pan with a lid will do here!
Meat thermometer: Take the guess work out of overcooking your meat! The one we’ve linked is the cheapest one to get the job done, but if someone is asking for a Christmas wish list– we’d suggest this one!
Other than a whole chicken, some salt and pepper, there’s nothing else required to make this delicious and nutrient dense protein!
Need a source for high quality mineral salt and fresh pepper? We love Azure Standard! Order all of your spices in bulk and pick them up at a drop!
Step-by-Step Instructions for Slow Roasted Chicken
Preheat oven to 375
Prior to preparing your bird, check the cavity of the chicken. It should be empty inside. If you have any giblets or plastic bags inside, simply remove them. Add them to the bottom of your roasting pan to add nutrients and flavor to your chicken bone broth, or save them for using in other dishes later!
1. In a heavy dutch oven, place chicken breast side up, making sure there are no giblets or plastic inside the bird. If there is a neck or any other pieces, you can leave them in the pan to add flavor to your broth later. If you don’t have a dutch oven, any heavy. Oven safe pan with lid will work!
2. Add plenty of salt and black pepper to the top your chicken. I typically will not cook a fancy roasted chicken (lemon garlic, herbs, etc) as later I want to be able to transform the leftovers into anything else. Thyme chicken and then taco stir-fry just don’t work.
Don’t be afraid of using salt if you are using a real salt! Essential minerals come from salt, and this will give your cooking a five star rating!
In step 3, the cook time is largely determined by the size of your chicken. Typically an entire chicken weights 4.5 pounds, if your bird is larger than this, consider leaving the lid on 15 minutes longer. If your bird is smaller, remove it 15 minutes soon. This simple recipe is the best way to roast a chicken because it relies on the meat thermometer to ensure you have a juicy and moist chicken!
3. Put the lid on and put it in the oven for one hour. After one hour, remove lid. If your meat thermometer allows you to leave it in the oven, insert it now, otherwise continue roasting your chicken for twenty minutes before checking the temperature. Continue cooking your bird without the lid on until the temperature of the meat is 165.Cooking without the lid for this remaining time allowed the meat to lock in moisture, but now you will get the crispiest skin. Check this by directly inserting the probe into the breast, without hitting the bone. This estimates your total cooking time to be about 1.5 hours, but using an instant-read thermometer is the only safe bet to a perfectly roasted chicken! Once the temperature is 165, remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for at least 15 move minutes. Don’t worry– the pan will hold in heat well.
Check the temperature of the chicken in the breast meat instead of the thickest part of the thigh for a few reason. Mainly, dark meat like thighs have more connective tissue and cooking them higher temperature than 165 degrees F will help break down the connective tissue. Yet, if you let your white meat (breasts) cook past 165, they will be dry and you’ll wish you were eating juicy meat!
Serve your chicken– you can carve it like a fancy thanksgiving dinner or just let everyone snag their favorite piece! Just be sure to save all the chicken skin, bones, pan juices, cartridge and soft bits to make some amazing and nourishing broth after dinner!
Be sure to share this slow roasted chicken recipe with your loved ones– both on the dinner table and in social media form!
Looking to upgrade your perfect roasted chicken? Be sure to follow our blog posts for the perfect way to make bone broth!
Next time, upgrade your slow-cooked chicken! Shop our pastured chicken here! We take pride in raising our own chicken on pasture with high quality grain and human care! We offer them for sale as a way to take this delicious recipe to the next level!
In less than 3 minutes, the leftover meat was removed from the bones and the carcass was on the way to becoming nutrient dense bone broth!
Step-by-Step Instructions for Slow Roasted Chicken
Equipment
- dutch oven or heavy pan with lid
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken
- salt
- pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375
- Prior to preparing your bird, check the cavity of the chicken. It should be empty inside. If you have any giblets or plastic bags inside, simply remove them. Add them to the bottom of your roasting pan to add nutrients and flavor to your chicken bone broth, or save them for using in other dishes later!
- In a heavy dutch oven, place chicken breast side up, making sure there are no giblets or plastic inside the bird. If there is a neck or any other pieces, you can leave them in the pan to add flavor to your broth later. If you don’t have a dutch oven, any heavy. Oven safe pan with lid will work!
- Add plentily of salt and black pepper to the top your chicken. I typically will not cook a fancy roasted chicken (lemon garlic, herbs, etc) as later I want to be able to transform the leftovers into anything else. Thyme chicken and then taco stir-fry just don’t work.
- Don’t be afraid of using salt if you are using a real salt! Essential minerals come from salt, and this will give your cooking a five star rating!
- In step 3, the cook time is largely determined by the size of your chicken. Typically an entire chicken weights 4.5 pounds, if your bird is larger than this, consider leaving the lid on 15 minutes longer. If your bird is smaller, remove it 15 minutes soon. This simple recipe is the best way to roast a chicken because it relies on the meat thermometer to ensure you have a juicy and moist chicken!
- Put the lid on and put it in the oven for one hour. After one hour, remove lid. If your meat thermometer allows you to leave it in the oven, insert it now, otherwise continue roasting your chicken for twenty minutes before checking the temperature. Continue cooking your bird without the lid on until the temperature of the meat is 165.Cooking without the lid for this remaining time allowed the meat to lock in moisture, but now you will get the crispiest skin. Check this by directly inserting the probe into the breast, without hitting the bone. This estimates your total cooking time to be about 1.5 hours, but using an instant-read thermometer is the only safe bet to a perfectly roasted chicken! Once the temperature is 165, remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for at least 15 move minutes. Don’t worry– the pan will hold in heat well.
- Check the temperature of the chicken in the breast meat instead of the thickest part of the thigh for a few reason. Mainly, dark meat like thighs have more connective tissue and cooking them higher temperature than 165 degrees F will help break down the connective tissue. Yet, if you let your white meat (breasts) cook past 165, they will be dry and you’ll wish you were eating juicy meat!
- Serve your chicken– you can carve it like a fancy thanksgiving dinner or just let everyone snag their favorite piece! Just be sure to save all the chicken skin, bones, pan juices, cartridge and soft bits to make some amazing and nourishing broth after dinner!
