Roasted Rosemary and Lemon Chicken Recipe

This keeps showing up on my menu plan, and I keep not sharing the recipe. That is because I keep forgetting to take pictures of it. This time, I remembered, but not until I’d already carved the chicken.

Roasting a chicken is super easy and very delicious. And your house will smell incredible!

Roasted Rosemary and Lemon Chicken

Roasted Rosemary and Lemon Chicken

1 chicken, 3½ to 4 pounds
2 small lemons
Salt and pepper
4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
5 or 6 sprigs of rosemary.
Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 325°.

Remove the giblets, if your chicken has any, and rinse the chicken in cold water, inside and out. Pat it dry thoroughly, inside and out.

Rinse the lemons and cut slits about 3/4″ apart all around the rind. Cut the onion into 1″ chunks. Smash the garlic with the side of a knife or the bottom of a can (you don’t have to remove the skins, but you can if you want). Finely chop one sprig of rosemary, and then crush the remaining sprigs a little bit with your fingers, just to release the oils.

Stuff the cavity with the lemons, half the onion chunks, the garlic, and the unchopped rosemary.

Rub the skin of the chicken with olive oil, and then salt and pepper it generously. Sprinkle the chopped rosemary on the skin, too.

Scatter the remaining half of onion chunks on the bottom of your dutch oven or roasting pan, to create a bit of a rack for the chicken. Put your chicken on top of them, breast up, and put it in the oven.

Cook for an hour to an hour and forty-five minutes, until a probe thermometer reads 160° when inserted in the thigh. Remove from the oven and let rest for 15 minutes (and finish cooking).

One of these days, I’m going to remember to roast 2 chickens at once, so we can have leftovers.  Even though we get a large amount of meat with this, we eat every bit of it, every time.

This post is linked to Tasty Tuesday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.