Video: The Ultimate Roast Chicken

Learn a great trick for getting incredibly delicious roast chicken.

63,061 Plays

In this video, you’ll learn how to make the ultimate roast chicken. You’ll see one of Chef John’s favorite tricks for roasting chicken. He’ll teach you how to make a simple flavored compound butter to rub under the chicken’s skin. The easy rub combines room-temperature butter with herbs, garlic, and lemon zest. You’ll see a neat trick for loosening the skin of the chicken, so you can really get the butter in there. This simple rub technique keeps the delicious citrus, herb, and butter flavor inside the bird instead of draining off into the pan. See top-rated recipes for roast chicken.

Related Recipes & Articles

Happy Roast Chicken

Pate and Pistachio-Stuffed Roast Chicken

Broccoli in Roast Chicken Drippings

Comments

Add a comment View all comments »

atnette1

Mar. 30, 2012 6:31 am

Texas is coming off the worst ever 1 yr. drought, that's why there's less beef.

redcandies

Mar. 30, 2012 12:30 am

To speed the cooking time you can half the whole chicken through the breast bone and down the back. Very easy with a sharp knife!! You still get the same wonderful roast chicken but you get the all over crispy skin and if just two people share you can both have a half and just eat your most fav parts of the chicken. Lots of leftovers for chicken salad or other delious dishes. Love the compound butter. Try adding fresh sage leaves. Pile up some fresh sage leaves on top of your chicken, 4 or 5 leaves is nice. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil or butter and they come out crispy and amazing. Try not to eat every one!!

SRCASTK

Mar. 18, 2012 12:53 pm

Running Down to the Market Now!!! Beef Roasts USED to Be the Sunday Staple Food, but they got so Expensive. C'mon Texas, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Nebraska Electrocute More Steers!!!

mabb

Feb. 22, 2012 7:24 am

Hello Chef John: thanks for the great tips...love your blueberry muffins, in fact when I go grocery shopping, my husband reminds me to pick up the blueberries...they're yummy...thanks again for your recipes and great tips.

Amb

Feb. 7, 2012 1:10 pm

I love herbed chicken, but did a compound butter with ginger, a touch of honey, pommello zest, garlic, S&P and stuffed the cavity with a tart apple. Method worked very well, thanks.

SissyGirl

Jan. 31, 2012 4:27 pm

We had this last night and my family loved it. My chicken was 10 pounds! So, I doubled the compound butter recipe. I was afraid I was going to get it too lemony, but I was wishing I had put a whole lemon in the cavity instead of the half I did. The chicken was huge...so I will know next time to adjust with a bit more accordingly. Thanks for the recipe.

italianchef2012

Jan. 6, 2012 4:20 pm

Roasted this chicken tonight and it was absolutely amazing with that compound butter. I find this recipe works better then trying to use a butter injector. Thank you kindly for posting this video on a very simple yet delicious recipe. Happy New Year to all!!!!

CookingMamma

Jan. 4, 2012 8:23 pm

Fabulous!!! I cooked this on a 450* BBQ tonight in sunny California. It was extremely flavorful and juicy! I would highly recommend it any Mom chef. Thanks :-)

Tinka07

Dec. 27, 2011 9:09 pm

I made this chicken this evening.. and OMG. So easy to do and it was crazy delicious! The chicken is tons more flavorful than I could have ever imagined! It is delicious!!!! My chicken was 4lbs and I did double the amount of butter and probably cooked it 30 minutes longer than needed, but holy cow this was good! I can't wait to make it again!!!!

Lisa

Dec. 20, 2011 2:48 am

I made this yesterday and it was the Ultimate Roasted Chicken!!! I used an 8 pound chicken with all the same measurements...just cooked mine for 2 1/2 hours on 350 degree oven. This recipe is MARVELOUS!!! Oh..I left out the lemon and it was fine. I used orange peel instead of lemon zest because I already had the orange peel spice. Did not have a lemon on hand.

Add a comment View all comments »

Recipe Box

Menus

Shopping Lists

See something worth saving?
Register now to save all your favorites in your Recipe Box.