Everyone needs room for a little more chicken in their life. Like this Orange Rosemary Roasted Chicken. It’s my favorite source of protein. When it’s roasting in the oven all dressed in butter, herbs, and citrus, I just about lose my cool. Plus, it’s super easy to make and retains so much more flavor since all the flavor comes from the bone. Roasting whole chickens is literally where it’s at.
It’s been high protein meals for Daniel and me lately. We are heading to California for his sister’s wedding in October, and we need to look and feel our best. I know that a whole stick of butter isn’t going to help the situation, but eating more protein, less carbs, and veggies, veggies, veggies will get us back on track.
It seems that lately, our health has been on the back, back, back burner because our life is overwhelming. Life, life, life, life, life has hit us over the head and we are scrambling to do things like: have a date or make sure we reach our vegetable intake for the day. So, we are trying to get back to this: home dinners, roasted chickens, breakfasts of apples, and desserts of honey-laced tea.
Plus, seriously simple, whole-roasted chicken. All you have to do is make a compound butter out of rosemary, freshly chopped garlic, orange zest, salt and pepper. Wait for the butter to firm up in the freezer for a bit and slice and stick that butter in between the skin and the breast.
Dry chicken breast solved.
The rest of the butter just rests on top of the wings and drums and literally wherever else your heart fancies. The butter, coupled with cooking it long and low, makes this the most, wait for it….
Moist chicken you will ever eat.
I used to call this chicken my Holiday Chicken because I would literally always make it for any gathering I was having around the holidays. But really, it can be made in the dead of summer so then it was changed to my Party Chicken. Which then gave me thoughts of this chicken stumbling around wearing a Sigma Pi sweatshirt on a Thursday night. So no – it turned into this Orange Rosemary Roasted Chicken.
If you don’t have a dutch oven, and you are more into a slow cooker kind of deal, you can use your crockpot instead, set on high for two hours. It’s as simple as that.
Try out this party/holiday/everyday chicken. Bring it to a gathering or make it this weekend after your errands are done and laundry is folded, and you can just kick back to the smells of citrusy orange and savory rosemary.
Orange Rosemary Roasted Chicken
Roasting a whole chicken never seemed so simple. The orange and rosemary bring life to a dull chicken. This recipe is where easy meets impressive.
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 110 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours 50 minutes
Ingredients
1 stick room-temperature butter
1 orange, zested
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary plus 1 bundle of rosemary
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 cup orange juice
1 whole chicken
1 small onion
Instructions
Mix room temperature butter with orange zest, chopped rosemary and garlic, salt and pepper together and place in plastic wrap. Form into a 4-inch long log. Place in the freezer until firm and cut into tablespoon-sized disks.
Place the orange juice in the bottom of a dutch oven and preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Remove the gizzards from the chicken cavity and replace with orange slices, quartered onion and rosemary bundle. Rub the butter under the skin of the chicken breast and place the rest of the butter on the outside of the wings and legs. Sprinkle the rest of the chicken with salt. Place into the dutch oven with the lid and bake in the oven for 90-110 minutes until a thermometer inserted into the breast registers at least 160 degrees.
Keywords: butter, chicken, orange, orange chicken, rosemary, whole chicken
