Tasty Thursday - Roasted Chicken

I had always been afraid to cook an entire roasting chicken. I figured it was too difficult to monitor whether it was undercooked/overcooked. I thought it was hard to keep it from drying out or not having enough flavor.

Boy was I WRONG! I found a recipe online and tweaked it a little bit to my own liking. And I prefer to cook my chicken this way, instead of buying chicken breasts, because we are saving money and getting MORE chicken for what we are spending.



I use whatever size chicken is available at my store. The smallest I've cooked is 3lb, the largest was the one pictured above, 7.5lb!

6 TBSP butter
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 TBSP paprika
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp brown sugar
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Place chicken in an ungreased baking pan or roasting pan. Preheat oven to 325.

Combine remaining ingredients in a small saucepan and heat until butter melts completely. Remove from heat and pour over the chicken. Bake for 1.5 hours (smaller chicken, my 7.5lber took about 2 hours), or until chicken reaches a temperature of about 165. Baste occasionally.


This recipe is SO simple and so yummy. I make about one chicken every 1l-2 weeks. Here is a picture of how much chicken I pulled off the bones AFTER we had already eaten dinner. I cannot wait to make chicken enchiladas with it tonight!