Roast Chicken

Below is my recipe for roast chicken. The thought of cooking an entire chicken used to intimidate me, but this dish is so simple and hard to mess up. Since I'm writing this blog post in summer and it's been in the 100's the last few days, I have been cooking most of our meals on our Traeger. I always set the temp on the Traeger the same as the oven temp.

Roast Chicken
Preheat oven to 425 degrees
1 (5 to 6 pound) roasting chicken
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 large bunch fresh thyme, plus 20 sprigs
1 lemon, halved
1 head garlic, cut in half crosswise
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter, melted
1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced
4 carrots cut into 2-inch chunks
6-8 small red potatoes cut in half
White wine or 1 can chicken stock
Olive oil

Rinse the chicken inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pin feathers and pat the outside dry. Discard giblets if any, most butchers will have already removed for you.

Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the bunch of thyme, both halves of lemon, and all the garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken.

Place the onions, carrots, lemon slices and potatoes in a roasting pan. Toss with salt, pepper, 20 sprigs of thyme, and olive oil.

Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top. In this instance I just used a skillet. If you want to add more veggies like red potatoes you'll need to cook this in a larger roasting pan.

Roast the chicken uncovered for 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh.  Add some white wine or chicken stock to bottom of the pan when you have about 30 min left in the oven. I always use a thermometer to check on my meat it's more accurate, chicken should be @ 165.