This Slow Roasted Chicken Recipe makes it easy to cook up a perfect roast chicken every time, with juicy flavorful meat that practically falls off the bone, golden brown skin, and luscious pan juices (to spoon over mashed potatoes!)
With garlic and spices slathered all over the chicken, and the gentle heat of a 300ºF oven for three hours, this chicken gets meltingly tender, soaking up all the incredible flavors of the garlic and spice mixture into every delicious bite!
The Best Way to Roast A Chicken
Every home cook needs a great roast chicken recipe in their repertoire. Roasting a whole chicken is not hard to do, yet if you get it wrong, you can end up with rubbery drumsticks, dried out breast meat and soggy skin - a very sad situation.
There are so many ways to roast a chicken it's almost dizzying. Some recipes focus on super crisp skin, others have a special two-sided cooking technique designed to keep the breasts moist, some include vegetables for a full roasted dinner in one pot.
Out of all the roasted chicken recipes that I've seen and tried, this slow roasted chicken is one of the easiest methods I know, and it's fail proof. You get a perfect roast chicken every time!
Here’s what I love about this slow roasted chicken recipe:
- The prep time is only 15-20 minutes
- The lemon, garlic, fennel and thyme create amazing flavor
- Though the cook time is long - 3 hours - there's no basting or fuss. You just set it and forget it.
- As the chicken roasts, the house fills up with a heavenly aroma
- Because the oven heat is so low - 300ºF/150ºC - there's no risk that the chicken will dry out or that the garlic and herbs on top will burn. With this method, even the white meat is juicy and tender.
How To Slow Roast A Whole Chicken In The Oven
Here's how to do it: coat the chicken with the garlic and spice mixture, inside and out; stuff the cavity with more garlic, a sliced lemon, and fresh thyme; tie up the legs; and roast the chicken in a 300ºF/150ºC oven for three hours.
- Start by Preheating the oven to 300ºF. While it's heating, make the garlic and spice mixture: Whisk the olive oil, garlic, fennel, salt, and red pepper flakes in a small bowl. Spoon it over, under and inside the chicken, and use your hands to spread it evenly over every surface of the chicken, making sure there's plenty on top of the breasts, which will soak up all those delicious flavors. This is the perfect combination of flavors for an incredibly delicious roasted chicken.
- Stuff the cavity of the chicken with lightly crushed garlic cloves, the sliced lemon, and the fresh thyme.
- Truss the chicken: Tie the chicken's legs together with kitchen twine. This will help the chicken cook evenly (more about trussing below).
- Roast the chicken in the oven for three hours. No need to baste it or to even check on it. Just set the timer and when you come back, you'll have a perfect roast chicken!
- Wait 15 minutes before carving. When you take the chicken out of the oven, it needs a little time to cool down a bit and redistribute its juices.
How to Slice and Serve A Whole Slow Roasted Chicken
This slow roasted chicken cooks up so tender and easy to slice, I often cut it up right in the roasting pan. Transferring it to a cutting board works well too! Here's my favorite way to slice and serve a roast chicken.
- First cut the chicken into eight pieces: two breasts, two thighs, two drumsticks, and two wings. Then cut each breast crosswise into five or six slices. That way everyone can have a thigh or a leg plus a couple of pieces of white meat.
- Arrange the chicken pieces on a platter or, even easier, in the same pan you used to roast it. Nestle the pieces into the pan juices, put the lemon slices around (they're delicious by the way), and sprinkle some thyme leaves around, or chopped parsley, for color.
- For the perfect roast chicken dinner, serve this chicken with mashed potatoes and a leafy salad with bright citrusy dressing.
Three Tips for making the best whole roasted chicken:
- Let the chicken come to room temperature before roasting it. If you put a cold chicken in the oven, it will lower the oven temperature; the chicken won't cook as evenly; and your recipe timing will be off. A half an hour out of the fridge is plenty of time for the chicken to come to room temperature.
- Pat the skin dry with paper towels. The drier the better if you want the chicken skin to brown. A wet chicken will create a steamy oven which can result in soggy skin. Some chefs recommend salting the chicken and putting it in the fridge overnight, uncovered to dry it out completely before roasting it. Some even recommend using a hair dryer! Or you can buy an air chilled chicken, which is low-moisture. Personally, I'm very happy with the paper towel method.
- Truss the Chicken (tie the legs together). The key here is to tie the ends of the legs together, which helps the chicken cook evenly. When the legs are tight against the breasts, both are less likely to dry out. Also, trussing the chicken closes up the cavity and prevents hot air from circulating in there and drying out the breasts.
Here's the Slow Roasted Chicken Recipe. If you try this, I hope you'll come back to leave a star rating and a comment. I'd love to know what you think!
PrintRecipe
Slow Roasted Chicken: A Perfect Roast Chicken Every Time
- Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
This low and slow cooking technique is an easy, no fail recipe for making a perfect whole roast chicken in the oven, with meltingly tender flavorful meat, golden brown skin, and luscious pan juices.
Ingredients
- 3 ½-4 pound chicken
- 8 medium garlic cloves, divided
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons of ground fennel seed (even better if you freshly crush 2 teaspoons of fennel seeds with mortar and pestle)
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (or 1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper flakes)
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 lemon, thinly sliced
- 1 whole bunch of fresh thyme
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300ºF (not convection) and arrange a rack in the center position. Remove the chicken from the fridge so it has time to come to room temperature before you roast it (see notes below).
- Squeeze 3 of the garlic cloves through a garlic press or finely mince them, and put them into a small mixing bowl. Add the olive oil, salt, fennel, red pepper flakes, and black pepper. Mix thoroughly and set aside.
- Remove the giblet pouch from the cavity of the chicken (if there is one); rinse the chicken inside and out with cold water and pat it very dry with paper towels, inside and out. Place the chicken, breast side up, in a roasting pan.
- Coat the chicken with the garlic and spice mixture, spooning it on, under and inside the chicken, and using your hands to spread it around evenly, making sure there's plenty on top of the breasts.
- Lightly crush the remaining 5 garlic cloves (see notes below) and stuff them into the cavity of the chicken. Set aside a few sprigs of fresh thyme to use as a garnish and stuff the rest into the chicken, along with the sliced lemon. Tie the chicken's legs together with twine (see notes below) and roast it in the oven uncovered for 3 hours, undisturbed.
- Remove the pan from the oven and let the chicken rest in its juices for fifteen minutes before carving. Cut it into eight serving pieces and then cut each breast crosswise, into 5 or 6 thin slices, if you like. Transfer the chicken to a serving platter or, even easier, serve it right in the roasting pan. Nestle the chicken pieces into the pan juices, scatter the cooked lemons around, and garnish with reserved thyme sprigs.
Notes
Three Tips for making the best roast chicken:
- Bring the chicken to room temperature before roasting it. If you put an ice cold chicken in the oven, it will lower the oven temperature; the chicken won't cook evenly; and your timing will be off. Make sure the chicken is out of the fridge for a half hour to 45 minutes, before roasting it.
- Pat the chicken dry with paper towels. The drier the better if you want the skin to brown.
- Truss the Chicken (tie the legs together). When the legs are tied together, they're held tight against the breasts and both the legs and breasts are less likely to dry out. Also, trussing closes up the cavity of the chicken, which prevents hot air from circulating in there and drying out the breasts.
How to lightly crush and peel garlic: Place an unpeeled garlic clove under the flat side of a large kitchen knife and pound the top side of the knife with the heel of your hand (VERY CAREFULLY, AVOIDING THE BLADE), to lightly crush the garlic. The skin will come off easily.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 hours
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Roast
- Cuisine: American
Cheryl
This recipe is a hit, everyone praised at how tender the breast pieces were. Thank you for this 🙂
Christine
I believe you should never rinse chicken. The heat from the oven will kill the bacteria. By rinsing you can do more harm than good.
DeAnna Reames
Just curious as to what harm rinsing does???
Giancarlo
It can cause cross contamination by splashing tiny droplets on your counter, etc.
Luisa
Hi Lisa,
I have not tried this recipe yet ( cant wait to though) but just wanted to ask in the instructions you say 300F for oven and in brackets you say not convection.. What do you mean by this?
Also, what is the temperature in celcuis as that is what i understand it in. Im in Australia
Apologies in advance if this seems like a weird question but im not always a wiz in the kitchen
Lisa Goldfinger
Hi Luisa - thanks for your excellent questions. In the USA we have two oven settings - bake and convection bake. Convection bake has a fan which intensifies the heat in the oven quite a lot so my note refers to that. As for the temp in Celsius, 300F is the same as 150ºC. I hope that helps and I hope you enjoy the roast chicken!
Karen Thomas
My family loved this chicken recipe! I really love it myself! It was so easy to prepare! And omg we love that it's so tender! Thank you so much!
Amy S
Thanks for this delicious recipe. Loved smelling it while it cooked, loved eating it even more! The fennel is a great touch.
Lisa
Amazing! Perfect in every way! The fennel (yes, freshly crushed!), the falling-off-the-bone meat. This is our go-to roast chicken. Thank you!
Dianne Wilson
We have used this method for roast chicken for the last 3-4 years . I often roast the bird vertically, on metal (Chrome wire) pedestal. In summer we use our kamado-style BBQ-smoker, in winter our kitchen range oven. We estimate 1hr/pound. It has always been fall-off-the-bone tender, never overcooked or dried out. We are doing this for Easter dinner today in kitchen, as it is still winter here in this part (western) of Canada. The carcass will be used for soup stock! Great versatile recipe!
Clive Pinder
300F for 3 hours? Chicken was cooked as per meat probe in 90 minutes.
Lisa Goldfinger
Hey Clive, while it's true that the chicken can reach a safe internal temp of 165 after an hour an a half, it will continue to tenderize and will ultimately taste better and have improved fall-off-the-bone texture if you cook it for the full 3 hours. There's a lot written about this on the web if you want to do some Googling. The truth is, chicken may reach a safe temp at 165 but that's not necessarily the ideal temp to achieve deliciousness. I assume you removed the chicken from the oven after 90 minutes. If you're willing to try the recipe again, I'd love to know how that first attempt compares with a chicken that roasts for the full 3 hours.
Sally
Hubby and I both agree that this is the best recipe I've tried for roast chicken. Absolutely delicious!
Amanda
Is the cook time really the same for a 4 vs 6-7 pound chicken? Do you need to keep the larger chicken in for longer?
Lisa Goldfinger
Hi Amanda - you might only need 3 hours for a bird between 3 1/2 - 7 pounds. Why don't you check the bird for doneness after 3 hours and take it from there. It may be perfect or it may need another half hour to an hour. I hope you enjoy the chicken 🙂
Jimmy
Hi! Wouldn't breast down be a more effective way to get a juicy breast? I know it doesn't allow for the crunchy skin on the breast, but it seems like the juice flowing down into the breast meat would be better. Any thoughts?
Jean Doyle
Finally - a delicious roast chicken. I didn't have fennel so I used onion, I omitted lemon, and used parsley instead of thyme. The roasting technique is the game changer - 300 degrees for 3 hours - undisturbed. This recipe is a keeper. TY
Lisa Goldfinger
Yay! I'm so glad you enjoyed the chicken 🙂
Julie
Hi , sorry I couldn’t see if this should be cooked covered or uncovered?
Thanks
Lisa Goldfinger
Uncovered. Sorry for the confusion. I just added that to the recipe to make it clearer. I hope you enjoy!
Laura
Made this for dinner tonight and everyone had seconds. So full of flavor and moist! This will definitely be my go to for roast chicken.
Klara
Oh. My. God. I’m gonna make this for the rest of my life and never ever EVER use any other recipe for roasted chicken. So tender. So juicy. So full of amazing flavors. And all this with a relatively cheap, ordinary chicken. AND with little to no effort. Thank you so much, it is perfect!!!
Klara
It’s been in the oven for about 40 minutes and the smell is incredible. This is killing me. Next time I’ll plan for leaving the house for those blasted 3 hours.
Patty
I never cook chicken uncovered and was afraid it would be dry. No indeed! One of the best chicken dishes I have ever had.
Neveen
This recipe has become a staple in our house. It’s fall-off-the-bone tender and oh so flavorful. Generally, I roast in a pan with a rack to keep the chicken separate from the juices. It’s still very tender but it gives me some flexibility to use the chicken in other recipes (eg, enchiladas, tacos, sandwiches, etc.). I plan to make it as described and will report back after. I’m sure it’s equally delicious and flexible.