Sometimes I feel like going all out on a beautiful dinner, and sometimes (most of the time) I just want to make something that’s easy and reasonably healthy. This Easy Tuscan Roast Chicken is the rare recipe could work for both. It promises not to be too complicated, but it has plenty of classic seasonings. I can see it as the centerpiece for a nice dinner with all the fixings–just add fresh vegetables, potatoes, and a homemade dessert. On the flip side, I can see serving it with some steam-in-bag vegetables and a side of bread for a simple and easy dinner.
Succulent roast chicken flavored with fresh rosemary, garlic and lemon and cooked with white wine. So easy and absolutely delicious.
The Ingredients
One thing I loved about this recipe was that it had only a few ingredients, and they were all easy to find and/or inexpensive basics. I had to buy almost everything for this recipe, and I spent about $15 total. I’d say I got about 3 servings out of it, though, since the chicken I bought was about 3.5 pounds. The recipe calls for a 4-4.5 pound chicken, but I bought a smaller chicken because it’s just the 2 of us.
The Process
Making this recipe was easy, just like the name promised. The first thing I did was convert the oven temperatures from Celcius to Fahrenheit. My oven’s temperature settings go in units of 5, so I had to round some of the conversions. These are the temperature settings I used:
- 200℃ ➔ 390℉ (Step 1)
- 160℃ ➔ 320℉ (Step 6)
- 220℃ ➔ 430℉ (Step 7)
Once that was done, I just had to chop some herbs, rub the chicken, and throw it all into a large pot. I used a cast-iron Dutch oven that was a little over 5 quarts, so it fit everything with room to spare. It would have easily worked for the 4-pound chicken the recipe called for.
Although the prep work wasn’t difficult, it did take a lot longer than the 5 minutes listed, relatively speaking. This is how long I spent on this Tuscan roast chicken recipe:
- 16 minutes to prep
- 1 hour to cook
- 10 minutes to rest
- 1 hour 26 minutes total
Things went very smoothly up until Step 7 when the temperature was turned up to crisp the chicken skin. I checked the chicken after 5 minutes, and it still looked raw, so I gave it another 5 minutes and no change. I was afraid I would overcook it, so I turned the broiler on high and gave it another 5 minutes. That did the trick, and I opened the oven door to the beautifully browned (and not overcooked) chicken you see pictured.
