![Arroz con Pollo Verde](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/01/18/dining/kc-arroz-con-pollo-verde/merlin_199949076_75ecfbf8-2730-40c3-8765-931bcdf7eff0-mediumThreeByTwo440.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
Salt-and-Pepper Roast Chicken
Updated Feb. 28, 2024
![Salt-and-Pepper Roast Chicken](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/03/25/dining/18clark-roast-chicken/clark-roast-chicken-articleLarge-v4.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 1 hour 15 minutes, plus marinating
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
Advertisement
Ingredients
- 1(3½-pound) whole chicken, patted dry
- 2½teaspoons kosher salt
- 2teaspoons black pepper
- Small bunch mixed herbs, such as rosemary, thyme and sage
Preparation
- Step 1
Season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. If you have time, refrigerate the chicken, uncovered, for an hour, or overnight.
- Step 2
Heat oven to 450 degrees. Place chicken breast-side up in a roasting pan or large ovenproof skillet. Stuff cavity with herbs and tie the legs together with kitchen twine. (If you don’t have twine, leave the legs as they are.)
- Step 3
Roast 50 minutes, then baste chicken with pan juices. Continue roasting until chicken's juices run clear when skin is pierced with a knife, 5 to 10 minutes longer. Let stand 10 minutes before carving.
- Now that you know the basics of roasting a chicken, here are some suggestions for how to serve it:
- Try a side sauce. Aioli, béarnaise sauce, salsa verde, romesco sauce, chimichurri, and make-ahead gravy can be prepared in advance, and transform a simple roast chicken into a something a little more special. Even a dollop of Dijon mustard does wonders here.
- Serve your chicken directly on top of a pile of watercress, baby kale, tatsoi, arugula, or other tender, dark greens that have been sprinkled with lemon juice and dusted with salt. The heat of the bird will wilt some of the greens while others remain crisp, and the hot chicken fat makes an instant dressing once it mixes with the lemon juice.
- Substitute hot toasted bread for the watercress or greens, above. The hot chicken fat makes these croutons exquisite.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
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.
I
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.
I threw some initial side-eye at this recipe, because it was just *too* easy. No dry brine? No roasting rack? You just plunk the thing in a skillet and walk away?
Yup.
Delicious, easy, flavorful. I threw some garlic in with the herbs in the cavity. Some chicken skin stuck to the skillet, which made a great skillet gravy. Will definitely do this one again!
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.
My bird came out perfectly. Can't believe how easy this is. Got an air-dried chicken. Used a peri peri rub we get from a place in Seattle because we like a little spice. Supplemented that with salt and pepper. Had no fresh herbs so I smashed a couple of cloves of garlic for the cavity. Dried in the fridge overnight; roasted in my cast iron at 400 degrees. Took about 1 hour 10 mins.
Started it back side down then flipped to breast side down to make sure it stayed moist.
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.
I made this twice: once using a preheated cast iron skilled and once using a regular roasting pan. The preheated cast iron made a world of difference, transforming the chicken from ordinary to sublime.
For smoke control: try starting at 450, then when (after ten or fifteen minutes) it gets a little too aromatic moving it down to 425; if it's still threatening smoke, then, down to 400.
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.
Also cabbage cooked in the juices is delicious
Perfect recipe! My only change is I actually roast breast side down so the white meat stays shockingly juicy rather than breast side up which always makes a dry breast.
Very yum. I preheated the cast iron skillet with lovely results. Best roast chicken I’ve made!
Simple, easy and delicious!
I learned to roast a chicken like this from Babara Kafka’s book on roasting. Foolproof!
I'd like to know where you're finding 3/1/2 lb. chickens. Stop & shop always has them well over 4 lbs. and up.
Please make it easy on yourself and use a thermometer. Take it out when the thickest part of the breast meat hits 150f. And let it rest on the counter for a few minutes to finish.
Can someone please tell me where I can get a 3 1/2 pound chicken?
I basted with pinot grigio throughout cooking! With the left overs I made chicken salad!
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 the pan 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.
Advertisement