Simple Herb Roasted Chicken

Cathy's Garden Fresh Cooking Blog

Written by Cathy on 26 April 2010

It’s a rainy Sunday, a perfect day to roast a chicken. I love herbs and garlic…lots of garlic! Which reminds me of a story? Once while cooking with my Grandmother (on my Father’s side) we were making her mushroom rice pilaf and I was assisting as a young teenager. It was time to add the garlic and Grandma said, “Only put in a half of a clove”. I said, “Let’s put 2 cloves in”. She said, “Oh no, it will be bitter”. I gained her trust telling her it wouldn’t and she went along. We should have known then that someday I would be in the Gilroy Garlic Cook Off! As my Dad says, “Cathy’s cooking. I could smell the garlic a block away!” Ha Ha! It is true though. Like I said… I love garlic! By the way, if you over brown garlic when sautéing it will become bitter, but slow roasting it will result in a brown, buttery, delicious, yummy spread.

Back to the chicken. My favorite 3 herb combination is rosemary, sage and thyme. Of course garlic is a must. Try a variety of herbs, add a lemon if you like. Squeeze the lemon on top of the chicken and then put the lemon half in the cavity of the chicken. We also slow roast chicken on the grill with the rotisserie attachment.

Herb Roasted Chicken

1 roasting chicken

1 head of garlic

Fresh herbs such as rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, parsely, chives, washed

Extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and Fresh cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut head of garlic, horizontally, in half. Separate and peel the cloves of one half of the cut garlic: cut cloves into half.

Remove the chicken giblets. Place the chicken, breast side up, on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Using your fingertips carefully work your way under the skin of the chicken to separate the skin from the breast and legs to develop a pocket. Take the cut garlic pieces and gently stuff them under the skin along with sage leaves, thyme and rosemary sprigs. Stuff the cavity with the unpeeled garlic half, and remaining herbs. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. As you can see in the picture, I did not need to tie the chicken with the rack I was using.

Drizzle chicken with olive oil, massage to coat. Sprinkle with kosher salt and cracked black pepper.

If using a meat thermometer, insert it in the center of the inside thigh muscle, making sure it does not touch bone. Roast, uncovered, until temperature reaches 180 degrees. If chicken starts to overbrown, cover loosley with foil. Remove chicken from oven, cover loosely with foil and let stand 15 minutes before carving.