A few years ago I bought a copy of Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook It’s All Good and I love it! Her recipes are clean and delicious and some of our very favorite weekly go-to’s are derived from recipes from her cookbook. But our very favorite recipe if I had to pick one is her roast chicken. I probably make it at least once or twice a month. Over time I’ve adapted it to make it my own. See below.
Ingredients:
- One 4-5 lb whole chicken (I prefer an organic chicken, I usually get mine from Trader Joe’s where they’re about $2.99/lb)
- One lemon, sliced into rounds
- One yellow or white onion (I prefer yellow), roughly chopped
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil, I don’t have a specific measurement for this one, I would say at least a cup
- Black pepper, to taste
- Texas Black Gold Garlic Salt (this is my secret ingredient – this stuff is like crack and you can order it online so no worries if you don’t live in Texas) or Sea Salt
- Optional, 3-5 cloves of garlic (if using the salt above you can omit)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Rinse and dry chicken, remove gizzards if applicable.
- Bathe your chicken in olive oil. I’m serious. Rub it on the outside, under the skin, in the cavity. It should feel like you’re massaging the chicken almost…
- Pepper and salt the chicken. If using Texas Black Gold Garlic Salt (which you should be – I’m telling you, this isn’t sponsored, I’m just OBSESSED with this stuff) a little bit will do ya. Season the outside and inside the cavity. Do yourself a favor and use freshly ground black pepper. Seasoning makes a difference!
- Place chicken breast side up in oven safe dish (I like ceramic or stone more than glass but to each their own). Not sure which side is the breast side? See pic to the left, you’re welcome.
- Slice the lemon into rounds and stuff into the cavity of the chicken.
- Slice onions into big chunks and stuff into cavity as well.
- If using garlic cloves, peel the garlic cloves and stuff into the cavity.
- Note: if you have extra lemon and onion slices you can put them around the chicken.
- Put the chicken in the oven for 90 minutes BUT and this is IMPORTANT: You need tobaste the chicken at least once. This is what makes your chicken SUPER juicy. Gwyneth and I recommend every 30 minutes but if you’re like me and have a couple of wild children running around you can also just do it once at the 45 minute mark.
- If you follow the steps above your chicken will emerge 90 minutes later looking like the pic below. Simply plate it and make sure you spoon lots of the juices on to the chicken as well!
Side Options:
I’m a fan of keeping it light with this one. A salad, maybe some green beans or asparagus.
If you want to go the total opposite direction of light (which is what I did the other night) you can do Tomato Basil Soup.
I’m lazy and literally buy this soup and dump it into a pot on the stove but here’s the trick that makes you seem like you slaved over it: you make your own parmesan crisps in the oven.
How you ask?
Dump parmesan cheese on a baking sheet like so (see left).
Put in the oven on the rack under your chicken.
Cook for a couple of minutes (keep an eye on it). You want it to be a little brown on the edges like in the picture on the right.
Voila!
My husband was SO IMPRESSED with my Tomato Basil Soup skills. I was honest and told him it was from a jar but you don’t have to be ;).
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