Roasted Chicken With Lemon & Rosemary

Here’s a main dish recipe that hits on all cylinders as far as I’m concerned; it’s delicious, nutricious, and it just takes a few minutes to assemble before you can throw it in the oven and forget about it til ready to serve and eat.  It’s also very low in calories and unless you have a large family, will leave you with a ton left over, which I love to use for making an even easier 2nd or 3rd day meal – like chicken salad for lunch one day, chicken quesadillas for dinner the next, or even just to toss on a salad or pizza. Yum!

All you need is a whole chicken, some butter, lemons, a few sprigs of rosemary, and salt and pepper.


Ingredients

  • 1 whole Chicken, rinsed and patted dry
  • 3/4 cups Butter, softened
  • 2 whole Lemons
  • 4-5 sprigs Rosemary
  • Salt And Pepper, to taste

Add the butter to a bowl…to speed things up, I microwaved mine for about 45 seconds.

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Next, zest your lemons…

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Strip off a bunch of rosemary leaves and chop them finely; even more than shown here…

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Add some salt and pepper and mix it all together. It should look about like this…

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Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and place the chicken in the center, then smear the butter mixture over the whole thing…even getting into the crevices. (Note:  You can also use chicken pieces rather than a whole chicken.)

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Cut the lemons in halves and squeeze all over the buttered chicken, then stuff as many lemons as you can into the chicken cavity, and wedge 2 whole sprigs of rosemary in there as well.

Roast in the oven for about 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 1/2 hours at 425. (Basically, you want it cooked through so the juices run clear when cut, and the skin to be a deep golden brown, but not so much that it’s not still moist in the middle.

Remove it from the oven, cover it loosely with foil, and let it stand for about 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

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