This 1-hour roast chicken recipe is not only juicy and delicious, but it’s also extremely easy to make and only uses one pan, so the cleanup is fast!
Roasting a whole chicken might sound intimidating if you’ve never done it before. But, not this chicken! You’ll be shocked when you learn just how easy it is to make—not to mention delicious!
Step 1: Prep Your Veggies
This recipe calls for three vegetables—leeks, carrots, and petite potatoes. If you’ve never cooked with leeks before, they’re similar to green onions but are a little more mild in flavor. Here are a few tips for cooking with leeks:
How to clean and cut leeks
It’s important to rinse the leeks really good with water before (or after ) you chop them. The inside of a leek is similar to an onion in that it has a bunch of layers and sometimes soil can get caught in between the layers.
You typically want to use the white and light green parts of the leek when cooking so chop the dark green parts off first. Cut the base of the leek in half and then slice the halves like you would chop celery.
Step 2: Stuff Your Chicken
When you get your chicken it’s important to remove the giblets from the inside. (Butchers often leave additional parts inside the chicken). Once removed season the inside with salt. From here, you can stuff your chicken with pretty much anything you’d like, but for this recipe, we’ll be using lemon, garlic, and fresh herbs.
I’ve found that slicing the lemon along the core makes it easier to for the lemon to fit inside the chicken, and cutting the garlic head in half so that the bottom half has the entire stem. This helps prevent the garlic gloves from separating and releases the flavor easily from the garlic.
Tie your herbs together before stuffing into the chicken. Any herbs will work but I like to use rosemary, thyme, parsley, and sage.
Step 3: Baste & Season
This is probably the easiest step of all. Simply coat the outside of the chicken with melted butter and sprinkle salt, lemon pepper seasoning, and thyme all over it until it’s covered. Let the chicken cook halfway through and then pour the remaining melted butter on top and then let it finish cooking. The second layer of butter helps to give it a shiny, golden brown crust while keeping the inside nice and juicy.
1-Hour Roast Chicken Recipe
- 2 leeks (use white and light green parts only)
- 4-5 carrots (peeled, halved, & cut into thirds )
- 1 lb petite potatoes (halved)
- 1 whole chicken
- 1 lemon (cut in half)
- 1 head garlic (cut in half)
- 3 sprigs fresh rosemary
- 6 sprigs fresh thyme (reserve 3 sprigs and remove from stems)
- 3 sprigs fresh parsley
- 4-5 sage leaves
- ½ cup butter (melted)
- salt and pepper (to taste)
- 3-4 tbsp lemon pepper
- ½ cup white wine
- ½ cup chicken broth
Preheat oven to 425 and move the rack to the lower third of the oven.
Chop the leeks and rinse well. Chop the carrots and potatoes and set aside.
Remove the giblets from the chicken and pat dry with a paper towel. Salt the inside of the chicken.
Cut the lemon and garlic head in half and stuff inside the chicken. Bundle the fresh herbs together (any herbs you have will work fine) and add it to the inside of the chicken.
Using a basting brush, baste 1/2 the butter along the outside of the chicken. Season generously with salt and lemon pepper until the chicken is fully covered. Sprinkle with fresh thyme leaves. Be sure to tie the legs together to keep the juices from running. Transfer chicken to a large casserole dish.
Add the veggies around the perimeter of the pan, surrounding the chicken. Season the veggies with salt and pepper. Pour the wine and chicken broth over the veggies distributing it evenly throughout the pan.
Cook for 25 minutes. Remove the chicken from the oven and pour the remaining butter over the top. Continue cooking for an additional 25 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.