Easy Roasted Chicken

Roasting a chicken is a wonderful, easy and beautiful thing to do. The meat turns out so moist, tender and flavorful, and it’s much easier than frying or grilling. I’ve never had bad results with this method.

This is something you can do with a whole chicken if you want to, you would just have to increase cooking and brining times. I don’t very often because, well, I’m picky and only like the white meat. Why waste all that dark meat?

Fresh from the oven!

The beauty of taking the time to go through this process is that even a dry meat like chicken breast will come out moist and flavorful. I love using garlic and a good Hungarian paprika but the other beautiful thing about this process is that you can put nearly any flavoring you like on this chicken and it will turn out delicious, from veggies like carrots, onions, peppers, celery and garlic to herbs like thyme, rosemary, basil and parsley. Here is what I do:

Oven-Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 to 3 pounds, or 2 to 3 pieces, of chicken breast, bone-in.
• 1/4 cup coarse kosher salt.
• 2 quarts water.
• Gallon-sized container.
• Small sauce pan.
• Tongs.
• Plate.
• Paper towels.
• Baking dish.
• Salt.
• Pepper.
• Desired seasonings.
• Aluminum foil.

Method:

1. Bring two cups of the water and the salt to a boil, stirring just until the salt dissolves.
2. Add the salt water to the rest of the (cold) water in the gallon container while stirring. The water should be as cool as possible to avoid spoiling the chicken; use ice if necessary.
3. Place chicken pieces in the water and make sure all of the chicken is submerged. Cover container if able to or if desired.
4. Let the container sit for at least an hour, if not a few hours. The time frame is pretty flexible so one to six hours is fine.
5. When ready to bake, set oven to 375 degrees.
6. Remove chicken from fridge and rinse in cool water.
7. Pat chicken dry with paper towels on a plate and place into baking dish.
8. Sprinkle, rub, douse or shower chicken with salt, pepper and desired seasonings.
9. Cover dish with foil and let bake for 45 minutes.
10. Once dish is removed from the oven, let it sit for 15 minutes. This is important as it lets the moisture circulate and absorb back into the chicken. Carefully spoon juices in pan on to chicken, if desired.