Salt-and-Pepper Roast Chicken Recipe (2024)

I would add one thing to this great, easy recipe. Place the skillet in the oven while it is heating. That way when you put the chicken in the pan it gives an extra kick of heat to the dark meat which helps it finish cooking at the same time as the white meat. A small chicken can be cooked in as little as 40 minutes when the skillet is preheated.

Add some sliced golden yukon potatoes to the bottom of that skillet and you are a long way to a full meal.

Cooked one last night, using a rating-5 chicken (organic, never in a cage, sourced to one farm, etc). Came out perfect. My wife, a pilot, had just come home from flying a transatlantic flight from Zurich and visiting her dad in a stroke rehab and needed some comfort-she got it with this meal.

Very good and very easy. To Melissa Clark's herb bundle of sage, rosemary and thyme, I added parsley. I'm not sure that it improved the flavor significantly. But to someone of the Simon and Garfunkel generation, it made the dish more lyrical.

Perfect, no brains method used for years. Use an instant read thermometer to establish 'pull' temperature, 'present whole bird if desired then cover and rest about 15-20 minutes. $35 per serving in restaurant or ~$5-$6 at home. Tied dry herbs or citrus peel are fun but not essential; plain is perfectly OK. The REAL Key seems to be 24 hour drying after seasoning.

This is similar to Thomas Keller's simple roasted chicken recipe, high heat, air dry, salt and pepper, no vegetables that add steam.
My husband's favorite roasted chicken recipe.
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FYI it does spatter so I use a cast iron Dutch oven which has higher sides than a skillet. Make sure the fan is on.

Thanks, Nice. Two good reasons for TRUSSING the chicken (i.e., for using string to brace the wings and legs to the body while roasting.: Trussing will 1) keep the W&Ls from DRYING OUT/OVERCOOKING over the long roast session, i.e., they will cook more CONSISTENTLY in relation to the BODY of the chicken (which definitely takes LONGER to cook), and 2) the overall chicken will retain a better/traditional shape when done, rather than looking like it was caught in mid-jumping jack...

I've been having good results with the high-temp method and even with preheating the pan.
In addition to salt and pepper, I add a generous amount of paprika. About halfway through the cooking time I add some quartered onions, carrot chunks, and a can or two of white potatoes, and pretend I'm a French grandmother.

I will never, ever, forget dinner I had in Milan in the early '80's. I was invited to a friends flat and his wife served a chicken roasted with fresh rosemary and small potatoes all around. The potatoes roasted in the rosemary flaovred chicken fat. No doubt, the chicken had probably been killed the day before. This is one of my most memorable meals. Simplicity and great ingredients.

No need to disconnect the smoke detectors. To the recipe, just add an equal number of shower caps to the number of smoke detectors.

I put a tiny rack in the roasting pan and everything was just fine. Big bunch of fresh herbs: sage, rosemary, thyme, parsley, oregano and a few chopped shallots. Added a little water to the pan--my chicken held most of its juices--when the oven started to smoke. Very nicely done free range, local bird, cooked so perfectly during resting one of the drumsticks fell off. Followed one of Ms. Clark's serving suggestions: made a bed of mustard spinach tossed in sherry vinegar and salted. Mmm good.

There's no question that this simple approach results in a great bird, and I would always cook a bird at high heat using a variant of this method if it were not for the smoke. Almost any oven I've used to roast chicken at 450--and even 400--results in a lot of smoke. And worse, because my current oven is not self-cleaning--it is a 1986 vintage small commercial oven--I get smoke when using the oven subsequently, until I clean it.

I added some quartered mushrooms I had to use up. Put them in the last 10 minutes after basting. Perfect!

WONDERFUL! Added paprika,garlic powder sprinkled over the chicken. Added few garlic cløves. to cavity.Used a really good 3lb chicken from Trader Joes (but not organic ). Heated thepan as suggested, sprayed w olive oil, then placed chicken in pan (large enough to add veges later. Roasted @450º 20 min. Took out øf oven, added carrots,small potatoes, rest of the garlic cloves.Sprinkled veges w paprika & garlic powder, s & p. Sprayed all w olive oil. Roasted 30min. Juicy & PRFCT.

Really good and super easy. The fresh herbs infused this small chicken perfectly. Served with roasted brussel sprouts and roasted sweet potato cubes. This will definitely go into my rotation.

Kitchen twine, kitchen twine, why don't I have a handy spool of kitchen twine like I remember my mother having. Oh, but I do have a tidy round of kite string! I'm sure it won't poison me if I truss my chicken with it. The kite is long gone.

I have been making an almost identical recipe in a cast iron dutch oven. One tip - start it breast side down for 10 minutes, then flip and finish roasting. DO add parsley to the herb bundle, DON'T skip the marinating, and DON'T tie the legs. It isn't as pretty, but it assures cooked thighs without cooking the breast as much.

Fabulous! Several family members said it was the best chicken they’d ever had.

Combined with oregano stuffed chicken recipe and made on pre heated cast iron

Salted my chicken and left it in the fridge for 24 hours. Then I trussed it and stuffed it with herbs and a few cloves of garlic. After 50 minutes in the oven at 450 degrees, there was not a drop of juice with which to bast the chicken. Where did I go wrong?

I may never roast a chicken any other way. After decades of chicken roasted every which way, DANG! Simplest turns out to be the best. BTW I only "marinated" (air-dried in fridge) for about an hour and that's all it needed.

Love this one but the heat makes the oven smoke.

I’ve made this chicken 20 times. It’s always a crowd favorite. I definitely recommend buying a connected thermometer so you don’t have to guess when the chicken is done. As far as the herbs go: I use 1 full package of rosemary and thyme and 1/2 a package of sage (otherwise you can get a bit of a soapy taste).

Don't waste that lovely fat! I steamed some small Yukon Gold potatoes until tender. Then, after removing the chicken to a cutting board, I tossed the taters and some fresh rosemary in the pan and let it bake in the oven while the meat rested. Sublime!!

A great addition I tried was a lemon slice between the skin. Even the kids loved it!

Melissa, is the wiggly leg a reliable sign of doneness?

I made this tonight. Followed the directions only adding one other ingredient. I put two cloves of garlic inside the chicken with the herbs. It turned out excellent! The whole family raved about it.