One Trusty Cast Iron Skillet and a Generous Bit of Bacon Make This Spatchcocked Roast Chicken Totally Unbeatable.
The sight of a perfectly golden brown, crispy roast chicken coming out of the oven is enough to make us dizzy with glee. Rubbed with a few spices and bacon drippings for good measure—yes, you read that right! We rub the chicken with bacon fat—this one-skillet roast chicken recipe is pure heaven in a pan. Shaved Brussels sprouts make a wintery, cruciferous bed for all that golden crispy chicken. Those sweet and slightly bitter tiny edible buds soak up a heady mixture of chicken fat and bacon fat as they roast beneath the bird, and when you pull the skillet out of the oven, prepare yourself for some serious dinnertime bliss. Just add a loaf of good bread—any kind you love—for sopping up all of those divine drippings.
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Spatchcocked Bird = Perfect Roast Chicken.
We’re breaking out all the tricks to get crispy skin and tender, juicy meat from this super simple whole oven-roasted chicken recipe. The real key to this cast iron roast chicken recipe is in the prep! By spatchcocking the chicken—also known as butterflied chicken—before roasting it in the oven, we create more surface area. Spatchcocking the bird simply means removing the chicken’s backbone and pressing down to make the carcass lay flat. And viola! More surface area has been achieved! Why would you want that? Two big reasons—faster cooking time, and more evenly cooked chicken, too. You can use a good pair of kitchen shears to spatchcock the whole chicken yourself (here’s how to spatchcock a chicken) or you can ask the butcher at the grocery store to do it for you. If you’re new to spatchcocking, it may feel like there’s a slight learning curve, but we’ll walk you through in the post linked above! And once you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll be set up for a lifetime of perfectly roast chicken dinners. A worthwhile investment of time, we’d say!
The 4 Basic Things You’ll Need To Make This Easy, Gorgeous Whole Roasted Chicken Dinner
A simple, pantry-focused roast chicken rub, some bacon (OK, more than a little bacon)
A whole chicken, spatchcocked.
Bacon.
Brussels sprouts. You can buy shaved Brussels sprouts at the grocery store, or you can shave them yourself with a mandoline slicer or your food processor fitted with the shredding attachment.
Spices from the pantry. Nothing too crazy! We bet you’ve got these around already. Salt and pepper, of course. Also paprika, garlic powder, brown sugar and ground mustard powder.
Let’s Get Down to Business: How To Roast a Chicken
There are a million things to love about this whole roasted chicken recipe. The chicken is beautiful—far more beautiful and inviting than any weeknight-friendly recipe has a right to be. The skin is addictively crisp and rich and flavorful. The spice rub that coats it is pungent but not overpowering, with a hint of smoke from the bacon drippings. And, because it’s spatchcocked, it’s a bit faster than a traditional whole roast chicken—when it’s spatchcocked, your roast chicken cooking time is just about an hour (sometimes a bit under an hour) at 400° F. As always, the best way to check for doneness is to use an instant read thermometer—the done temp for whole roast chicken is 165°F. You’ll want to see that number when you insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the chicken’s thigh or breast, taking care not to hit bone.
Cook the bacon until it’s crispy in the cast iron skillet (yep, the same one you’ll use to roast the chicken).
Spoon about two tablespoons of the bacon fat into a bowl (to rub on the chicken). Move the bacon to a towel-lined plate. Leave a good amount (about 2 more tablespoons) in the pan, but discard any amount in access. You just want the yummy flavor for the sprouts!
Make a bed of Brussels sprouts (giving the sprouts a little turn in the bacon grease) and then top the sprouts with the spatchcocked chicken. Drizzle the chicken with the bacon fat that you set aside.
Stir together all of the spices for the spice rub, and rub it all over the bacon-y chicken.
Roast the chicken! About an hour at 400° F, but we recommend that you start checking the internal temperature of the chicken after about 50 minutes.
How To Store Your Leftover Roast Chicken (If You Have Any!)
If you have any leftover chicken, store it in the fridge in an airtight container for up to four days. If you really have a lot of leftovers, you could take the chicken off the bone and freeze it in a freezer-safe container for up to three months. And of course, you can (and should!) freeze the chicken carcass for making chicken stock! The chicken carcass will keep in the freezer for up to three months as well.
Tools You’ll Need:
Mandonline slicer or the slicing attachment for a food processor
More Whole Roast Chicken Recipes to Try
An Iconic Dinner, Any Day of the Week
Honestly, there’s no more iconic, classic meal than roast chicken and this one is as simple as can be. Give it a try and let us know how you like it, OK? Share a photo and tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper so that we can see your stuff! Happy eating!
