Roast Chicken

A weekly meal in our house, this roast chicken is sooo good and you won’t believe how easy it is to prepare! Don’t be scared…let’s get started!

A few years ago I would have been terrified to cook a whole chicken. To be perfectly honest, I was scared of most cooking. My kitchen knowledge was mainly centered around baking cookies and scrambling eggs. Fast forward to becoming a stay at home mom, and besides caring for the wild child, my chief role was preparing meals for my small family. And I didn’t have a clue how to go about that. 

This is one of those meals that scared me. But it really couldn’t be easier. I’ll walk you through it!

Our ingredients: 

• 2-3 sweet potatoes
• 2-4 cloves of garlic
• 1 onion 
• sprig of fresh rosemary (optional)
• 1 bag of baby carrots
• 1 whole chicken
• seasonings (cajun, creole, greek….any flavor you like)

Go ahead and preheat your oven to 425. You’re going to need a 9 x 13 glass baking dish (this is a staple in my kitchen).

Rinse your chicken under cool water and remove the pack of giblets from the inner cavity (not all have this-I buy most of my whole chickens from Aldi and it usually does have the packet inside). Once done rinsing, give it a shake to remove excess water and place it breast side up in your dish-like the picture below.

Chop your vegetables. Go ahead and leave the skin on the sweet potatoes if you like. I dice up 3-4 cloves of garlic, you can vary this amount. Feel free to use pre-minced garlic in the jar if you rather. Anything works.

I don’t finely dice the onions, just cut in a half and then slice them. 

Add your veggies to the pan; doesn’t matter what order. I usually go carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, then top with rosemary, salt, pepper, charbroil seasoning or creole seasoning but order isn’t important. Just make sure you salt fairly well. *If you have too many vegetables for your pan, stuff some in the cavity of the chicken like below. 

You’re going to put your chicken on the middle rack at 425 for 30 minutes, then after 30, turn the oven down to 375 for around 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until the chicken has reached an internal temp of 170. 

I check my chicken at around the 1 hour mark to see if I need to add water or broth to the pan. Sometimes there will be enough liquid in the pan that I don’t need to add any extra. This liquid will cook your vegetables down until soft and tender, so I like to make sure to push them down with a spoon and make sure they’re good and coated. 

Once done, remove from the oven and let rest for about 10 minutes. Serve and enjoy! 

If you try this, please let me know! I’d love to hear from you!