When’s the last time you roasted a chicken in the oven? Even if you didn’t do it yourself, you’ve probably bought a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store at least relatively recently. Without a doubt, cooking a whole bird when it’s stuffed with flavor enhancers and properly seasoned results in a truly incredible meal for the whole family. Still, we usually don’t put much thought into how we cook it—often, we just throw it in the oven and leave. Fortunately, we have a chicken roasting hack that will lead to much better dishes all the way around.
Instead of cooking your chicken on a sheet, use a Bundt Pan and stuff the ring with side vegetables with your bird mounted in the center! As your bird cooks, the chicken fan will be funneled down the sides of the pan into whatever tasty ingredients you put in there… and the results are superb. And we’ve got a simple recipe to help you get started.
Here’s what you need:
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 2 chopped carrots
- 1 onion, quartered
- 1/2 pound of yukon gold potatoes, quartered
- extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 bunch of fresh thyme
- 1 bunch of fresh rosemary
- 1 three to four pound chicken with the insides removed
- 1 sliced lemon
- salt
- pepper
- Bundt pan
Here’s what you do:
1. To get started, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Next, get your Bundt pan and cover the hole in the middle with some aluminum foil.
2. In the bowl portion of the pan, throw in your garlic, carrots, onions and potato chunks. Throw in some olive oil as well and stir it all around, seasoning it with salt and pepper to your liking. Next, scatter sprigs of fresh thyme and rosemary all over your vegetables.
3. After this, you’re ready to get your chicken prepped. Pat the chicken dry with some paper towels first and then season the inside of the bird liberally with salt and pepper, stuffing it with the lemon halves, some thyme and some rosemary. Rub the skin all over with olive oil and season the outside with salt and pepper as well.
4. Once you’re satisfied that everything is looking right, mount your chicken over the covered hold in the center of the Bundt pan with the breasts facing upwards. Bake the entire thing in the oven until the chicken is fully cooked through and the skin turns golden brown, typically for an hour to an hour and 10 minutes. Finally, take it out, let it sit for 15 minutes and enjoy!
Typically when we roast chicken in the oven, the juices come out the sides and end up mostly going to waste. This way, all that extra flavor that you’ve worked so hard to cultivate gets fully incorporated into the dish with no waste! The vegetables will taste great and the chicken will be perfectly and evenly cooked through.
Obviously, the recipe we’ve included above is a starter recipe to introduce you just to the technique. Although everything included here would definitely go well with a chicken, feel free to go rogue and add in whatever side ingredients tickle your fancy! If you want your chicken to have a different citrus taste, maybe throw some oranges into the mix. If you want to use some different root vegetables, throw in some parsnips, butternut squash or some beets! The sky is the limit here—the important thing is to tell all your friends about this perfect chicken cooking hack.
Have you tried out this technique for yourself? Let us know how it worked out for you in the comments.
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