A solid roasted chicken recipe is essential in any cooks arsenal. In fact, if you're only ever good at making one dish, I'd suggest mastering this one. When I make a roasted chicken, I'm opening up the possibilities in my week. The chicken is obviously delicious as the centerpiece of dinner, but if you want, you can also shred leftover meat and use it in tacos, soups, salads...shit anything really. It's amazing!

This recipe gives a lot of room to experiment with different vegetables, herbs and aromatics. There are only three non-negotiables here--you have to use fresh garlic cloves, butter (that means no olive oil substitutions) and an uncomfortable amount of anchovy fillets. Everything else is up to you. You might be thinking--you want me to put canned fish in my chicken? Yes, I sure as shit do but don't worry, it won't make your bird taste weird, quite the opposite.

It's spring time and because my mom gave me a lot of lemons from her tree back in LA, I cut them up and added them in but normally I don't. Also, sometimes I spatchcock my chicken and other times I don't...either way the recipe works. Super easy, incredibly customizable recipe heading your way.

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Easy Roasted Chicken

Yield 4

Author Ryan Shepard

Prep time

15 Min

Cook time

45 Min

Inactive time

10 Min

Total time

1 H & 10 M

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (about 4-5 pounds)
• 1/2 cup (or one whole stick) of unsalted butter, softened
• 3 anchovy fillets
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more as needed
• 1 teaspoon crushed black pepper, plus more as needed
• optional 2 whole leeks, trimmed and sliced
• optional bunch of thyme
• optional, 1 lemon quartered

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Add anchovies, garlic cloves and about a teaspoon of salt to a mortar and pestle. Pound until a nice paste forms. Add in softened butter and the rest of the salt and pepper. Use a spoon to mix until all ingredients are well incorporated.
3. Clean and trim chicken of excess skin and fat. Stuff the skin with half of the anchovy butter. Melt the rest of the remaining butter in the microwave (I like to add it to a mug and nuke it for about 25 seconds) and pour it over the top of the chicken.
4. Season the skin of the chicken liberally with more salt and pepper.
5. Grab a large cast iron skillet and lay down leeks, thyme and lemon quarters if using. Place chicken on top and cook uncovered for about 45 minutes or until done.
6. Remove from the oven and let chicken rest for 10 minutes. Carve and serve immediately.

Notes

• If you don't have a mortar and pestle, you're going to have to finely mince the garlic and anchovies and add them to a bowl with butter and salt and mix it that way.
• The cook time listed is for a spatchcock chicken, if you're roasting a whole bird, add on another 10-15 minutes of cook time.

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